Abstract:

Currently, the interest of software community to develop open-source tools in entertainment and social communication has risen. However, in the field of education engineering, the development of such tools has not received the appropriate attention. In electrical engineering courses, MATLAB® has been one of the tools most widely used by students that deal with analisys and design of closed-loop control systems, but the user requires a license because it is a proprietary software. In this sense, for instance, [1] developed a software tool using MATLAB® that simulates the closed-loop control system considering Robust One and Two-Degree-of-Freedom PI and PID Controllers. In [2], using MATLAB®, a simulation software tool with a graphical user interface was implemented to tune PID controllers considering the trade-off between performance and robustness in closed-loop system. In [3], the i-pIDtune tool based on proprietary software, is developed for the estimation of a high-order ARX model and to simulate closed-loop behaviours. In [4], a tool written in MATLAB® was implemented to tuned PID controllers based on robustness and performance considerations.

In order to alleviate the need for a license of a proprietary platform, we developed an open-source tool software that can be used in the teaching-learning process, providing to students an interactive way to understand several open-loop dynamics, as well as closed-loop responses in both regulatory and servo-control operations.

This paper shows the development of an interactive open-source tool and its use in control system education. The tool is open-source and it was programmed in Python3, therefore is an inexpensive way with a low computational cost to learn about open-loop systems and closed-loop systems considering different types of process dynamics and controllers, not restricted only to PID controllers. The real-time simulation mode integrated in this tool, allows the user to understand in an interactive way the meaning of each parameter in classical second order plus dead time models, as well as the meaning of each PID controller parameters. Thus, the tool results very useful for an entry level course in control systems in careers as electrical engineering.

References:
[1] Y. Benavides, V. Alfaro, O. Arrieta, and R. Vilanova, “Interactive software tool for robust tuning of one- and two-degree-of-freedom pi and pid controllers,” vol. 46, no. 17, pp. 13–18, 10th IFAC Symposium Advances in Control Education.
[2] D. Fernández, V. Alfaro, O. Arrieta, and R. Vilanova, “An optimization software tool for performance/robustness analysis and tuning of pid controllers,” vol. 46, no. 17, pp. 126–131, 10th IFAC Symposium Advances in Control Education.
[3] J. Guzmán, D. Rivera, M. Berenguel, and S. Dormido, “i-pidtune: An interactive tool for integrated system identification and pid control,” vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 146–151, 2nd IFAC Conference on Advances in PID Control.
[4] O. Garpinger, T. Hägglund, and L. Cederqvist, “Software for pid design: Benefits and pitfalls,” vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 140–145, 2nd IFAC Conference on Advances in PID Control. [Online].

Keywords:

Teaching-Learning tools, open source, control engineering.