A simple mechatronic system for teaching control concepts to industrial automation students

In this paper we propose a laboratory experience which is designed to effectively teach the automatic control of mechatronic systems during the course of Laboratory of Mechatronics, at the University of Brescia. We propose the use of a laboratory-scale overhead crane to implement a motion control task. The proposed machine is entirely built by using standard industrial hardware, and includes both mechanical and electrical/electronic parts. This allows the students to experience first-hand the importance of many concepts learned in previous units such as PID control, cascade control, and motion planning. A peculiarity of this course is that we propose a non-standard technique for the design of the reference signal, thus exposing the students to a methodology that is normally prerogative of experienced professionals and researchers in automatic control.