concepts, the role of control in design, and the role of control as a fundamental enabling technology in development of automated physical systems. Emphasis ...
Panos Antsaklis, Tamer Baqar, Ray DeCarlo, N. Harris McClamroch, Mark Spong, and Stephen Yurkovich he NSF/CSS Workshop on New Directions in Control ‘Engineering Education was held October 2-3, 1998, in the Coordinated Science Laboratory on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The purpose of the workshop was to explore the current state of control systems education, to identify new directions in control system education, and to recommend new initiatives that could support these directions. The workshop was structured to address control systems education in its broadest context, including control theory, control applications and practice in various disciplines, control technologies, integration of systems and control concepts, the role of control in design, and the role of control as a fundamental enabling technology in development of automated physical systems. Emphasis was placed on issues faced by North American educational institutions, mainly because control systems education is structured differently in countries outside North America. Nevertheless, the outcomes of the workshop re expected to be of global interest and applicability. The consensus at the workshop was that thc tinic is ripe for significant changes in how control systems are taught in most universities, and that the National Science Foundation, the IEEE Control Systems Society, and other profcssional organizations can play major roles by providing leadership and support for these changes. The needs of industry for wcll-trained control engineers are changing due to marketplace pressures. The background of students is changing. Many come from nontraditional backgrounds, and they often are less well prepared in matheniat-
ics and science while being better prepared to work with modern computing technologies. All of these faclors called for a critical evaluation oT control education, making this workshop a timely and well-received event.
Interdisciplinary Nature of Control Systems Control systems education lakes place in many different academic departments and disciplines, and control systems applications occur in a wide variety of technologies. Viewed from the broadest perspective, control systems science and engineering is concerned with automation. It involves a variety of tasks such as modeling, identification, simulation, planning, decision making and optimization, combating uncertainty through feedback, and performance cvaluation. In addition, successful application of control principles involves the integration oC varions tools from -
SponR is with the CuordinutedScience Lnhuru/ory, University ofIllinois, Urlmtn, IL 61801 (rri-si~ong@~~ii~c.~~dii). Aiil.suk1i.s is with the Department uf Electrical Engineering, University nf Notre Dante; llagar is with the Department of Electricd und Cumputer Engineering, University uflllinois; DeCrrrlo is with the School uf Electrical Engineering, 1’1irdiie University: McClinnroch is with the Depurtrnent ~f’Aerospace Engineering, University ofMichigan-Arnt Arbor: Ynrkuvich i.s with the Depurtment qf Electriccil Engineering, The Ohio State Univer,sity.
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related disciplines such as signal processing, electronics, communications, software, algorithms, real-timc computing, sensors and actuators, as well as application-specific knowledge. Application areas of control automation include transportation, manufacturing, communications, aerospace, process industries, and commercial products. The basic control systems principles iufluence and impact all of these application areas, as well as diverse fields of study such as biology, economics, and medicine. One of thc driving forces in the workshop organization was the need to educate students to be productive in the development of all forms of future automatcd systems and in new applications of control systems principles.
Graduate curriculum issues Laboratory issucs Computing and World Wide Web (WWW) technologies Continuing education and industryhniversity relations Each of the following sections summarizes the deliberations of thc individual breakout groups as related to the above categories. Specific recommendations relevant to these five categories are included in these sections.
General Recommendation The overarching recommendation that arose from the workshop discussions reflects the fact that control systems is an inherently cross-disciplinary and worldwide subject of major importance to society and to the future developmcnt of automated systems. Accordingly: It i.7 recommended /hat interested orgcinizutions work to enhunce cooperation among various control orgunizations cind control disciplines throughout the world to give attention to control systems education issues and to increase the generul awareness ofthe importance ofcontrol systems techiwlogy lo .socie/y.
Workshop Structure and Participants The workshop featured several plenary talks and two breakout sessions, with participants in each session organized into four breakout groups. The workshop participants consisted primarily of university faculty members with strong control research orientations. This research orientation was an important ingredient in the deliberations at the workshop, since it influenced all of the discussions about current and future educational needs. In particular, the workshop built on the research strengths of the participants by emphasizing fundamentals, precision, and clarity. The academic participants had diverse backgrounds, coming from a variety of disciplines, including electrical, mechanical, aerospacc, and chemical enginecring, computer science, and mathematics. Although most univcrsity faculty attendees were from North America. there was also participation from outside the United States and Canada. In addition, there was participation from industry and government laboratories. The total number of workshop participants was 68. This report summariLes the outcomes of the workshop in five categories: undergraduate curriculum issues
Cooperation on educational initiatives should be encouraged worldwide among control professional organizations, including but not limited to the IEEE Control Systems Society, othcr IEEE societies, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Institute oiChemical Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Association of Iron and Steel Engineers, International Society of Measurement and Control, Society of Computer Simulation, Society of Instrument and Control Engineering in Japan, Institute for Operations Research and Management Science, European Union Control Association, and lnternatioiial Federation of Automatic Control. Likewise, cooperation among various control disciplines should be encouraged. Although the role of control systems varies according to field, there are fundamental principles of common interest across disciplines. Educational issucs difler among electrical engineering, computer science and engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, applied mathematics, and other disciplines. There is still much to be gained by widesprcad sharing of educational expericnces and practices. Society, in general, needs to be made more aware of the fundamental importance of control systems in the day-to-day lives of people everywhere. The goal of increasing public awarcncss of control systems is an educational one and can best be undertaken by control systems professionals and professional organizations.
Undergraduate Curriculum Issues Sanderwn, NSF Divicion Director, addrewed the workshop.
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There is a strong need for curriculum reform in undergraduate systems and control engineering education. Moreover, the entire control engineering community must share responsibility for andertaking this reform and developing curricular materials to support it. Control systems professional organizations can help by encouraging international cooperation to develop the necded materials. Most engineering curricula provide only a single course that exposes undergraduates to control engineering. Most often it is an elective course with a focus on quantitative methods for anal-
IEEB Control Systems
ysis and design of single-input, single-output (SISO) linear time-invariant systems. This course often does not convcy to students the fundamental nature of systems and control principles, their wide applicability in virtually every engineering disciplinc, or their widc-ranging impact on modern society. Such courses do not adequately serve the future professional neccls of students nor the need €or practical control knowledge in an illdustrial setting, and consequently, students are unmotivatccl to enroll in these courses or to continue beyond the first feedback control systems course. Preparation for an engineering career builds on an understanding of the inherently cross-disciplinary nature of systems and control principles. Concepts such as dynamics and modeling, frequency response, feedback, stability, optimality, and others are of fundamcntal importance and usefulness in virtually all engineering disciplines. It is therefore important to devclop a cross-disciplinary set of examples, demonstrations, and lahoratory exercises that illustrate systems and control principles across the entire spectrum of engineering. For these reasons, the classical control texts need to be augmented to include a set of diverse materials that integrate classical control methodology with cross-disciplinary examples, applications, software aids, and visual-interactive learning aids (based on either WWW or CD-ROM access for maximum convenience) as an esscntial ingredient €or preparing the student for a profcssional engineering career. Preparation for a career in engineering should include a basic sense of the systems and control concepts an engineer might encounter in practice. Practicing engineers encounter nonlinearities, innst develop models of physical systems, and must make decisions based on unccrtain or incomplete models. They must deal with increasingly complex and interconnected systems. In addition, they must dcal with failure modes and run diagnostics 011systems where there may also be sensor and/or actuator failures. Since the major portion of a control algorithm in practice consists of organizational and management code, the practicing engineer must develop competence in programming kind software issues. In light of this, a core control course should introduce the stw dent to a set of credible and progressively more challenging control problems in a context encompassing not only the control design, hut also specifications lor its softwardhardware implementation. These control problems must includc nonlinearities and sensor and actuator dynamics. They should expose students to the cross-disciplinary aspects of modeling and make them aware of the limits of control modeling and of what is and is not achievable by a particular control strategy. The students should also experience thc tuning ofa controller. when the model is no1 known.
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Efficient achievement of these goals neccssitates full integration of software and visual interactive material into thc course. Furthermore, it first course in control must emphasize fundamental principles. Emphasis on fundamentals must also include the devclopinenl of qiialitativc principles for evaluating the output of software. Available software elimiiiatcs the need to einphasize some traditional computational issues siicli a s the angle of departure in a root locus and imposes the necd for newer topics such a s matrix condition number. Thc context for iinplementatioii of such corc control systems courses should take place in a project-orientcd setting or in a serious open-ended laboratory setting with a Socratic Iorm ol'intcraction. Sevcral recommendations emerged in this domain l'roin the workshop. Provide practical experience i n control systenis engineering to,fir,st-yearcollege student.r to stinzulatefuture interest and introduce .fidndamerztal notions like feedhack and the system.s trpprocicla to engineering. This can be accoinplished by incorporating modules and/or projects that involve principlcs of control systcins into first-year courses that already exist in many engineering schools and collegcs. Introducing first-year engineering students to systenis and control design problems through simple, yet practical, examples could stimulate immediate and continued interest in control systems enginecring.
Encourage the deve/o~~tnent of new coiirses andcourse mnterials tlztzt would signifi'cant1.y Brociden the ,stanclcirdfirst introductory control systems coiirse lit the rindergraduate level. Such new courses would be accessible to all third-year engineering students and would deal with fundamental principles of systcin modeling, planning, design, optimization, hardware and software implementation, computer-aided control systems design and simulation, and systems performance evaluation. Equally important, such courses would stress the fundamcntal applications and importance of feedback control as well as thc limits of feedback, and would provide a bridge between control systems cngineering and other branches of engineering that benefit from systems enginccring concepts, such as networks and communications, computer science, and economics. Develo/>,fidlow-upcourses at the undergrathiate level that provide the necessary depth to /irepare students hotlzjior industrial careers and ,jbr graduate stuclies in .systems aizd c
