Control Engineering (2025)

Course manager

Imad Abou-Hayt

Semester schedule

Autumn (13-week period)

ECTS

5

Language of instruction

English 

Course type

Compulsory

Qualifications

Competences corresponding to the participation in the following courses: Mathematics 1 and Mathematical Modeling for both Mechanical Technology and Biotechnology students.

Objectives

The aim of the course is to provide a basis for the analysis, simulation and design of the most commonly used control systems in engineering.

Control systems are used to improve the performance and efficiency of e.g. chemical and power plants, factory productions, vehicles, heating and cooling, drones and aircraft.

Knowledge of control engineering contributes therefore to many of the UN's global goals for sustainable development, such as:
11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, 12: Responsible Consumption and Production and 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure..

Content

• Fundamental concepts in feedback control systems.Open- and closed-loop systems.

• Formulation of models of physical systems, such as fluid, thermal, mechanical and electro-mechanical systems. Differential equations.  State-space representations. Linearization.

• Laplace transformation and transfer functions. Reduction of block diagrams.
• System order and type. Sensitivity. Steady-state errors.
• Stability. Root locus. Frequency analysis.
• Ziegler-Nichols tuning method of PID-controllers.
• Introduction to state-space design of control systems.
• Applications of standard controllers and compensators.
• Use of open-source computational software.
• Practical exercises in the lab.

The theory and methods of the course are illustrated by many practical examples from different engineering disciplines. 

Learning targets

On completion of the course, the student is expected to be able to:

Knowledge

• Derive mathematical models of simple dynamic systems using the laws of physics as well as experimental data and linearize the system at a single operating point.
•  Represent dynamic systems with transfer functions, block diagrams and state description matrices.
• Characterize the behavior of 1^st and 2^nd order systems.

• Understand the consequences of disturbance and noise sensitivity.Understand and explain the theory of selected control techniques (e.g. On-Off, PID controllers and state-space compensators).

Skills

• Apply block diagrams to describe models for both open- and closed-loop systems.Apply dedicated open-source software for the analysis, design and simulation of control systems.
• 
   Evaluate controller performance in terms of overshoot, settling time, steady-state error, bandwidth and control limitations.
• Perform stability analysis, time domain analysis, and frequency analysis of control systems.
• Design feedback controllers and compensators in frequency domain as well as in state space.

Competences

• Be able to determine whether a system is stable or not.Simulate a given control system using dedicated engineering software.
• Operate a control system in the lab and write a technical report.
• Analyze the performance of a closed-loop system and decide whether the design specifications are met.
• Be able to tune a PID controller to achieve a desired system response.

Teaching method

Lectures, exercises, case studies and practical exercises in the lab.

Qualifications for examination participation

·         Approval of mandatory assignments.

·         Approval of the practical exercise in the lab, to be done in groups.

Examination and aids

Written on-site exam. The duration of the written exam is four hours.

Permitted aids: Textbooks, notes, laboratory reports, problem solution, and engineering software. No access to the internet.

Marking 

Internal

Grading

The 7-point grading scale