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Drag-and-Drop Graphical User Interface for Process Control Education

Abstract

One of the difficulties in process control education consists of providing a theoretical foundation maintaining the practicality. Experimental laboratories represent a powerful option to avoid this gap. An experimental laboratory must include industrial equipment and software systems in order to provide a real experience. However, industrial equipment demands several time- consuming procedures (i.e. training, configuration, etc). A Drag-and-Drop Graphical User Interface (GUI) is designed to facilitate these procedures and to assist students in achieving deeper understanding on process control. The GUI allows students the implementation and evaluation of different process control strategies exploiting industrial equipment. Early results are motivating.

Introduction

Important recommendations regarding needed reform in undergraduate control education consider4: “to provide practical experience in control system engineering…”. Additionally, “ the community and funding agencies must invest in new approaches to education and outreach for dissemination of control concepts and tools to nontraditional audiences”. The panel also recommended the integration of software tools such as Matlab into these courses29.

The proposal considers a Drag-and-Drop Graphical User Interface (GUI) that communicates an industrial PID controller with a personal computer. The communication system is hidden to the students. The GUI, follows the plug-and-play philosophy, which avoids the training and configuration time that every experimental laboratory demands. This interface allows students to interact with real process systems. Several control strategies can be easily implemented based on Matlab/Simulink or compiled on ANSI C scripts.

This paper is organized in the following way: First, a state-of-the-art review of similar projects is presented. Second, the design principles of the engineering course at Tecnológico de Monterrey are briefly described. Third, the academic proposal is described. Fourth, results of undergraduate senior students are presented. Finally, conclusions and future work end this paper in section Fifth.

State-of-the-art

Although there are many significant projects in this field, the projects described below are mainly related to the continuous control systems domain. The papers were organized in three tables based on the main contribution/innovation: simulation, laboratories and remote laboratories.

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Morales-Menendez, R., & Lopez, T., & Ramirez Medoza, R., & Garza, L. E. (2008, June), Drag And Drop Graphical User Interface For Process Control Education Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--4370