Contionuous VS discrete PID controller

As PID control algorithm is by far the most important and commonly applied control algorithm. As a consequence, it is very important for all the engineering students to have a good understanding of it. During the study of Control theory, the students usually get well acquainted with continuous systems, because they know the underlying mathematics quite well. In general, the courses dealing with discrete mathematics are not so common. So many students have never heard of discrete equations. In this paper a possible approach for addressing this problem is presented. A PID controller is realized both as continuous and discrete system. Their performance is compared on a real example.