Common-Sense Control Systems

A Hands-On-Equipment Seminar

10-14 December 2012
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, California

Control systems engineering is a little-understood topic in industry due to its highly mathematical nature. Many control loops operate non-optimally due to this lack of understanding of the technology. This seminar brings control systems engineering down to earth and presents it with a very practical, common-sense approach. It utilizes the very successful, lab-based approach developed and utilized at Cal Poly over the past decade.

What previous participants say...

"I had a great time and learned a large amount of information backed by actual lab work which solidified the principles being taught."

"The changes and tuning of the PID control algorithm and understanding the additions of each term made it clear to me how one would go about creating a controller after understanding the actuator, plant, and sensor. "

"I would recommend this course to others as I learned a great deal, created contacts with others in industry, observed others problems and how they were solved, and learned a lot about control theory as well as practice."

"All of the labs were informative and useful, especially to someone like me with zero background and zero formal instruction in controls."

"I would absolutely recommend to others that they take this course! I thought it was an excellent intro to the material, yet I think those who have substantial experience with controls also got a lot out of the class as well. It was a good mix of theory and application…"

"This was an outstanding course! I enjoyed the camaraderie you guys fostered. The extra curricular activities (impromptu offsite group lunches, Farmers Market, bread, cheese, drinks, and homemade treats, etc.) were a nice addition. I also appreciated your willingness to stay late to accommodate those of us who wanted to stick around and make that last mental connection between textbook and lab."

Course format

One-week course in classical control systems featuring these topics:

System modelling of real-world systems using industry-standard modeling tool, Matlab/Simulink
Standard control-loop anatomy−what questions to pose when approaching an unknown system or designing a new control loop
PID controllers−their anatomy and the use of each of the three actions
PID controller tuning methods−focuses on some of the best-known methods for tuning PID controllers for better system performance and energy savings

Note: Cal Poly Continuing Education credits will be offered for this course.

Lab

Some classroom lecture (33%) but primarily staged in Cal Poly's modern Mechanical Control Systems Laboratory. Electro-mechanical, electro-hydraulic, and electro-pneumatic motion control, tank-level control;

Cost

$2999 for 35 hours of instruction in two-person teams

Syllabus

To sign up...

Contact Lorie Harrington in Cal Poly Continuing Education, (805) 756 7608

Instructors

Frank Owen, PhD, P.E., Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Frank Owen has been involved in teaching control theory at Cal Poly since 1998. He became interested in industrial controls in the early 1990s and worked on a steam power plant simulator with Trax Corporation of Forest, VA. He studied control theory as his doctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin, 1995-8. In 1997-8 he worked as a contract employee for Fisher-Rosemount, Inc. in Austin in developing and testing the DeltaV distributed control system. At Cal Poly he rebuilt the Mechanical Control Systems Lab and introduced there the extensive use of Matlab/Simulink and LabVIEW. He developed several new experimental apparati to give students hands-on experience with modeling systems and designing PID controllers for them. He also worked as a guest professor at the Munich University of Applied Sciences and the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences in the hands-on controls labs at both schools, thus being introduced to the German method of teaching controls and using controls technology. His primary aim in the teaching of controls has always been to make the teaching much more hands-on, practical, and intuitive than it normally is at the university level, "turning control theory into control reality," as he likes to say.

Hemanth Porumamilla, PhD, Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Hemanth Porumamilla joined Cal Poly in 2007 as a lecturer for one year and has worked here as an Assistant Professor since 2008. Dr. Porumamilla's PhD research was in the area of active pneumatic suspension technologies using advanced controller designs. His doctoral work was not only awarded the Research Excellence award by the Mechanical Engineering Department of Iowa State University but also resulted in the filing of an intellectual property jointly owned with the university. At Cal Poly Dr. Porumamilla has worked on multiple research projects individually as well as in collaboration with fellow faculty in the Mechanical Engineering Department and in the process has advised several undergraduate students on their senior design projects and graduate students on their masters theses. These research studies have resulted in several publications in peer-reviewed international conference proceedings and journals. Dr. Porumamilla has also worked as a guest professor at the Munich University of Applied Sciences where he has taught a course in Automotive Mechatronics. Dr. Porumamilla's passion is both in teaching lab-oriented courses in Control System Design and working on projects in applied research that aim to address the needs of the real world.