Control systems take-home experiments [focus on education]

Most electrical and mechanical engineering curricula include courses in controls and mechatronics, with mechanical engineering curricula also including system dynamics and vibrations courses. The laboratory component for these courses is often limited and involves using a limited number of experimental setups. At many institutions, the laboratories associated with these courses are not taken in the same semester, preventing students from practicing the concepts learned in the lecture in a timely manner. Even in laboratory courses that are offered in the same semester as the lecture courses, in many cases it is not possible to synchronize the concepts covered in the lecture with the laboratory exercises since there are usually only a few lab setups for each experiment. © 2012 IEEE