A Mars Exploration Control Virtual Simulation Experiment Platform for Engineering Practice in Control Engineering Education

Contribution: This article presents a Mars Exploration Control Virtual Simulation Experiment Platform (MEC-vslab), which aims to address the current challenge of limited integration between control engineering education and engineering practice. MEC-vslab is oriented toward the practical needs of Mars exploration engineering. It offers unparalleled advantages by transcending temporal and spatial restrictions and has been applied to several basic control engineering curriculums. Background: Owing to the limited applicability of conventional control engineering education in practical engineering, students encounter difficulties in connecting theoretical knowledge with real-world application scenarios. Due to the impact of environmental complexity and conditional limitations, teaching laboratories cannot realistically reproduce aerospace engineering application environments and problems, making it difficult to develop students' ability to solve unknown engineering problems. Intended Outcomes: MEC-vslab facilitates students in acquiring comprehensive control knowledge, encompassing Mars rovers and drones' dynamics modeling, controller design, and parameter configuration for strongly coupled systems. By engaging with this virtual simulation platform, students develop a profound understanding of cutting-edge control engineering principles, augmenting their proficiency in employing control theory to address practical engineering challenges. Application Design: MEC-vslab as a part of the control-related theoretical curriculum, it encompasses three stages. By completing these stages in succession, students are able to apply their theoretical knowledge toward solving practical engineering problems in a virtual setting. Findings: The analysis based on positive student feedback as well as their learning behavior and questionnaire research that the MEC-vslab is an effective learning tool to integrate control engineering education with high-precision engineering practice needs.