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In recent years there has been a revolution in the development of interactive applications for teaching control theory. In parallel, much work has been done on the development of experimental and virtual control laboratories. In this work, different interactive tools are presented that aim to link both worlds with the aim of promoting the link between theory and practice, using the most common equipment that can be found in automatic control laboratories., This research has been partially funded through the project RECOVERY (PID2020-112658RB-I00). This work is part of the Project MAFALDA (PID2021-126001OB-C31) funded by MCIN/ AEI /10.13039/501100011033 and by ”ERDF A way of making Europe”. This work is part of the project MASHED (TED2021-129927B-I00), funded by MCIN/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union Next GenerationEU/PRTR., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)

La educación en automática es un área madura en la que multitud de profesores e investigadores han trabajado intensamente para afrontar el reto de proporcionar una educación versátil, con una fuerte base científica. Todo ello sin perder de vista las necesidades de la industria; adaptando los contenidos, las metodologías y las herramientas a los continuos cambios sociales y tecnológicos de nuestro tiempo. Este artículo presenta una reflexión sobre el papel de la automática en la sociedad actual, una revisión de los objetivos tradicionales de la educación en automática a través de los trabajos seminales del área y finalmente una revisión de las principales tendencias actuales., Control education is a mature area in which many professors and researchers have worked hard to face the challenge of providing a versatile education, with a strong scientific base. All this without losing sight of the needs of the industry; adapting the contents, methodologies and tools to the continuous social and technological changes of our time. This article presents a reflection on the role of automation in today’s society, a review of the traditional objectives of control education through seminal works in the area and finally a review of the main current trends.

Control education is a mature area in which many professors and researchers have worked hard to face the challenge of providing a versatile education with a strong scientific base. All this without losing sight of the needs of the industry; adapting the contents, methodologies, and tools to the continuous social and technological changes of our time. This article presents a reflection on the role of automatic control in today's society, a review of the traditional objectives of control education through seminal work in the area, and finally a review of the main current trends.

El lugar de las raíces es un método clásico para el análisis y diseño de sistemas lineales de control que ha formado parte desde su irrupción en los años cincuenta de los programas de los cursos básicos de control automático. La aparición de herramientas software de diseño interactivo de sistemas de control, que dibujan fácilmente el lugar de las raíces, permite a los docentes centrarse en explicar cómo afecta al lugar de las raíces la introducción de nuevos polos/ceros en la función de transferencia en lazo abierto, en vez de en explicar sus reglas de construcción. En este trabajo se presenta una nueva metodología docente para introducir la técnica del lugar de las raíces en cursos básicos de control que fomenta la utilización de una herramienta interactiva, como por ejemplo la herramienta LCSD desarrollada por los autores, para reforzar su aprendizaje., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)

Usually the controller is designed working on the open-loop transfer function. However, it is also possible to design the controller working on the closed-loop transfer functions. The closed-loop shaping methodology offers a straightforward framework which allows designers and students to focus on the required specification fulfillment and dealing with inherent linear systems limitations without complex computations or using difficult algorithms. This article summarizes the basic ideas of the manual closed-loop shaping methodology, and its application to the design of robust controllers for uncertainty linear systems. An interactive software tool for learning/teaching this methodology is also presented., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)

H8-based controller design is one of the most powerful methodologies for controller design in the frequency domain. Unfortunately, its use requires advanced knowledge of control theory. The use of interactive tools allows to a non-specialized user to use these techniques and to learn the fundamental concepts behind the H8 theory. In this work a graphical and completely interactive tool used to introduce students in H8 control is presented., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting /republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works, The frequency domain is one of the most popular and powerful frameworks for designing control systems. Usually, the controller is designed by working on the openloop transfer function. However, it is also possible to design the controller by working on the closed-loop transfer functions. This closed-loop shaping methodology offers a straightforward framework that enables designers and students to focus on fulfilling the required specifications and dealing with inherent linear systems limitations without the need for complex computations or the use of difficult algorithms. In comparison to open-loop shaping, closed-loop shaping offers an exact approach in a very simple framework. Interactive software tools have proven to be particularly useful techniques with high impact on control education. This kind of interactive tool has been demonstrated to help students learn in a much more active way. This article summarizes the basic ideas of manual closed-loop shaping and presents the basic functionality of the Interactive Tool for Closed-Loop Shaping Control Design (ITCLSD). Different illustrative examples are included to show the uses of the ITCLSD, Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author's final draft)

This paper presents ongoing project to develop new interactive books for control education. The novelty of the proposed idea is to merge web-based solutions with LaTex text into a epub format. In such a way, classical interactive tools for control education are combined with static text and thus interactive books are created, being compatible with standard e-book readers. A book chapter about the teaching of second-order processes is presented as example to show the different steps and the results of the proposed idea, Postprint (published version)

Frequency domain is one of the most popular and powerful framework to design control system. Usually this procedure is done using the open-loop transfer function. In this work, it is explored the possibility to perform the controller design by closed-loop shaping. It is analyzed how graphical representation and interactivity can be used in this framework to help automatic control students during the learning process., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)

This paper introduces an interactive methodology to analize, design, and simulate sliding model controllers for R2 linear systems. This paper reviews sliding mode basic concepts and design methodologies and describes an interactive tool which has been developed to support teaching in this field. The tool helps students by generating a nice graphical and interactive display of most relevant concepts. This fact can be used so that students build their own intuition about the role of different parameters in a sliding mode controller. Described application has been coded with Sysquake using an event-driven solver technique. The Sysquake allows using precise integration methods in real time and handling interactivity in a simple manner., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)

The classical loop shaping is a design procedure that explicitly involves the shaping of the open loop transfer function L(s), within a desired frequency spectrum by manipulating the poles, zeros, and gain of the controller C(s). Interactive software tools have proven as, particularly, useful techniques with high impact on control education. This kind of interactive tools has demonstrated in the past that students learn in a much more active way. This paper presents the basic functionality of the linear control system design (LCSD), an interactive tool for analysis and design of linear control systems with special emphasis on the classical loop shaping design. The software tool is implemented in Sysquake, a MATLAB-like language with fast execution and excellent facilities for interactive graphics, and is delivered as a stand-alone executable that is readily accessible to students and instructors. Several design problems are used to illustrate the main features of the LCSD tool to perform classical loop shaping., Postprint (published version)

The structure of the website of the Technical Committee 9.4 on Control Education of IFAC has been updated in last months in order to arrange its content and make it more functional. In addition to the basic sections presenting the scope of committee, its members, news, and the related activities, an electronic bulletin and a repository of bookmarks have also been included. The main purpose of this repository is to be a valuable service for sharing and finding resources for teaching Automatic Control and other related subjects. In addition, the repository is very easy to use and manage. Since the content management system used by the IFAC’s website does not directly support the two new characteristics, it has been necessary to resort to other applications in order to implement them. These applications are a free mailing list service, and an open source server for Social Bookmarking. The content of these applications has been integrated in the main website by using not only simple links, but also RSS.

© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works, Modern engineering projects are multidisciplinary and involve the integration of diverse elements. Within this context, automatic control plays a crucial role. Automatic control is an area of knowledge with significant mathematical content, including differential equations, linear algebra, differential geometry, and/or complex variable among others. Consequently, in many cases, automatic control is difficult for most students to grasp, especially in those cases where students have only an introductory control course in their engineering curriculum. Thus, teachers look for ways to introduce and make automatic control attractive for the students. From the very beginning, graphical representation has been used as support in automatic control teaching. Looking back to the pioneering books in automatic control, it can be seen that there are plenty of schematics and figures. Graphical abstraction was also used to contribute to theoretical understanding. Most of the relevant automatic control concepts, such as systems interconnection, frequency response, stability analysis, time response, and/or root locus, have been displayed graphically. This type of representation has been considered for years as an excellent way to introduce automatic control concepts., Accepted version

Although many control systems are influenced by static non-linearities, most current hands-on laboratories will not show this type of behavior. An analog board module, along with the classic setup plants, would provide a series of nonlinearities, whose effect could be studied and comprehended by students. This paper describes the mentioned analog board module, focusing on the dead-zone nonlinearity., Postprint (published version)

Most control system are in uenced by static nonlinearities. It is important for an engineer to understand which is the e ect of these nonlinearities. Unfortunatelly most hands-on laboratory can not be used for these type of experiences. In this paper it is described an ongoing project which adapts most conventional experimental setups to allow them to be used for nonlinear experiencies. In particular, the saturation case is described, Postprint (published version)

El Twin Rotor es un equipo didáctico bastante popular y que puede ser usado para un gran número de experiencias en el ámbito del modelado y control. En este trabajo se presenta una librería basada en MATLAB/Simulink que permite construir su modelo dinámico. A partir de ella se pueden realizar simulaciones y diseñar controladores. En el trabajo se presenta también un entorno de visualización del basado en en EJS., Postprint (published version)

Linear control systems are subject to design constraints. Most of these constraints are intrinsic properties of linear systems which can be explained in terms of complex variable theory. In this work a tool designed to introduce the waterbed effect. This tool offers different and simultaneous graphical representations of this effect. All these representations are interactive., Postprint (published version)

El presente trabajo describe el diseño y desarrollo de un laboratorio de prácticas especialmente concebido para apoyar el aprendizaje en sistemas de control de tiempo real. La herramienta desarrollada permite realizar experiencias de control de tiempo real sobre un motor de corriente continua tanto en modo simulación (basado en el modelo del proceso) o bien realizando pruebas prácticas usando el motor físico. Así, mediante la asignación de periodos de muestreo, tiempos de cómputo de tareas y prioridades de ejecución, el usuario final de la aplicación (profesores y estudiantes) puede observar el comportamiento correcto o incorrecto del sistema de control permitiendo, por contraste, reafirmar los aspectos teóricos de la metodología de implementación de sistemas de tiempo real., Postprint (published version)

The first part of this paper presents the concepts of interactivity and visualization and its essential role in learning the fundamentals and techniques of automatic control. More than 10 years experience of the authors in the development and design of interactive tools dedicated to the study of automatic control concepts are also exposed. The second part of the paper summarizes the main features of the “Automatic Control with Interactive Tools” text that has been recently published by Pearson and whose aim is to provide a series of auto-contained tools allowing to learn different basic concepts related to the automatic control. The work has been focused on how to represent the main concepts and how to formulate them according to learning based on examples., Postprint (published version)

Este artículo resume las principales características del texto con el mismo título que ha sido publicado recientemente por la editorial Pearson y cuyo objetivo es proporcionar una serie de herramientas autocontenidas que permitan aprender distintos conceptos básicos relacionados con el control automático. El trabajo se ha centrado en cómo representar los principales conceptos y cómo formularlos siguiendo un aprendizaje basado en ejemplos., Postprint (published version)

This paper presents an interactive Java software platform which enables users to easily create advanced robotic applications together with Computer Vision processing. This novel tool is composed of two layers: (1) Easy Java Simulations (EJS), an open-source tool which provides support for creating applications with a full 2D/3D interactive graphical interface, and (2) EjsRL, a high-level Java library specifically designed for EJS which provides a complete functional framework for modeling and simulation of arbitrary serial-link manipulators, Computer Vision algorithms and remote operation. The combination of both components sets up a software architecture which contains a high number of functionalities in the same platform to develop complex simulations in Robotics and Computer Vision fields. In addition, the paper shows its successful application to virtual and remote laboratories, web-based resources that enhance the accessibility of experimental setups for education and research.

Information technology has contributed significantly to the renewal of teaching methodologies used in control systems teaching. Computer applications are becoming very popular as a support in traditional lectures and as self-learning tools. This paper describes an on-going project which tries to develop a suite of interactive learning objects composed by graphical interactive applications plus simple learning cards to cover the complete contents of an introductory control system course., Postprint (published version)

[ES] Este trabajo presenta una herramienta interactiva que permite estudiar el control de sistemas multivariables haciendo uso de la técnica GPC (Generalized Predictive Control). Con ella es posible especificar interactivamente el modelo de la planta a controlar en forma de matriz de transferencia, modificar los distintos parámetros de control (factores de ponderación, horizontes de control, horizontes de predicción, etc.) e incorporar restricciones sobre las salidas y entradas del sistema (tanto físicas como de comportamiento). De esta forma el usuario puede observar la interrelación entre las distintas variables y visualizar de manera inmediata cómo, al realizar un cambio sobre algún determinado parámetro, el comportamiento del sistema se ve modificado.

[ES] Este trabajo presenta una herramienta interactiva que permite estudiar el control de sistemas multivariables haciendo uso de la técnica GPC (Generalized Predictive Control). Con ella es posible especificar interactivamente el modelo de la planta a controlar en forma de matriz de transferencia, modificar los distintos parámetros de control (factores de ponderación, horizontes de control, horizontes de predicción, etc.) e incorporar restricciones sobre las salidas y entradas del sistema (tanto físicas como de comportamiento). De esta forma el usuario puede observar la interrelación entre las distintas variables y visualizar de manera inmediata cómo, al realizar un cambio sobre algún determinado parámetro, el comportamiento del sistema se ve modificado.

En este trabajo se presenta una herramienta interactiva en 2D para ilustrar los conceptos teoricos de control en modo de deslizamiento en sistemas dinamicos lineales. El objetivo final es facilitar a los alumnos la posibilidad de visualizar la evolucion del sistema y su respuesta en tiempo real, ante distintas configuraciones y cambios de toda una serie de parametros del sistema en estudio. De esta forma el alumno puede experimentar con el sistema, lo cual le proporciona una comprension cualitativa y cuantitativa de la respuesta del mismo. Esta herramienta se ha desarrollado bajo el entorno Sysquake, que permite una facil programacion y diseño., Postprint (published version)

Las tecnologias de la informacion han contribuido significativamente a la renovacion de las metodologias docentes utilizadas en el ambito del control. Las aplicaciones informaticas se estan convirtiendo en una herramienta de apoyo en las clases magistrales y en herramientas de auto-aprendizaje. Este articulo describe un proyecto en curso cuyo objetivo es desarrollar un conjunto de objetos de aprendizaje interactivo para cubrir el contenido completo de un curso de introduccion a los sistemas de control., Postprint (published version)

Virtual and remote laboratories(VRLs) are e-learning resources which enhance the accessibility of experimental setups providing a distance teaching framework which meets the student's hands-on learning needs. In addition, online collaborative communication represents a practical and a constructivist method to transmit the knowledge and experience from the teacher to students, overcoming physical distance and isolation. Thus, the integration of learning environments in the form of VRLs inside collaborative learning spaces is strongly desired. Considering these facts, the authors of this document present an original approach which enables user to share practical experiences while they work collaboratively through the Internet. This practical experimentation is based on VRLs, which have been integrated inside a synchronous collaborative e-learning framework. This article describes the main features of this system and its successful application for science and engineering subjects.

Web-based learning environments are becoming increasingly popular in higher education. One of the most important web-learning resources is the virtual laboratory (VL), which gives students an easy way for training and learning through the Internet. Moreover, on-line collaborative communication represents a practical method to transmit the knowledge and experience from the teacher to students overcoming physical distance and isolation. Considering these facts, the authors of this document have developed a new dynamic collaborative e-learning system which combines the main advantages of virtual laboratories and collaborative learning practices. In this system, the virtual laboratories are based on Java applets which have embedded simulations developed in Easy Java Simulations (EJS), an open-source tool for teachers who do not need complex programming skills. The collaborative e-learning is based on a real-time synchronized communication among these Java applets. Therefore, this original approach provides a new tool which integrates virtual laboratories inside a synchronous collaborative e-learning framework. This paper describes the main features of this system and its successful application in a distance education environment among different universities from Spain.

El uso del laboratorio virtual (LV) como herramienta para el aprendizaje y experimentación práctica a distancia, cada vez es mayor en el entorno de educación superior. Este objeto de enseñanza virtual representa actualmente una revolución dentro del ámbito educativo, ya que permite adquirir al alumno habilidades prácticas desde cualquier lugar y en cualquier momento. Por otro lado, el desarrollo de entornos web que permiten la colaboración a distancia entre profesores y alumnos, se ha convertido en una cuestión fundamental para la investigación de muchas universidades del mundo. Por lo tanto, con el objetivo de unir las ventajas de ambos recursos educativos, este artículo presenta la creación de un sistema de comunicación que permite a un grupo de alumnos, coordinados por un profesor, compartir experiencias y experimentos prácticos con laboratorios virtuales (LVs).