Professor Michael Ruderman from the Faculty of Engineering and Science at the University of Agder (hereinafter UiA) in Norway is using Speedgoat and MathWorks real-time products in his courses to train Mechatronic master’s students all there is to know about control theory.

UiA is a future-oriented higher education institution located in Southern Norway. UiA prides itself for being on the cutting edge of innovation, education and research through co-creating knowledge, not just between their teaching staff and students, but also with regional industries and partners from their extensive network and community.

The Faculty of Engineering and Science offers a master’s program in Mechatronics, which merges multiple fields of engineering - such as mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, industrial, computer, and control engineering - and equip students with the right toolkit to strive in life after academia as young engineers.

As part of the Mechatronics curriculum, Professor Michael Ruderman teaches the Control Theory course every fall semester for students at the final stage of their study. He combines theoretical basics of systems and controls with practical hands-on skills training to show how to analyze dynamic systems and design feedback controllers in the frequency domain, statespace representations and digitalized discrete forms, as well as familiarizing them with common problems and boundary conditions within control engineering and real-world challenges and circumstances of industrial applications.

MATLAB^® and Simulink^® from MathWorks^® were chosen as the main numerical platforms for control-related teaching in the course. Therefore, it was imperative to find a matching real-time solution that worked and was compatible with the chosen MathWorks^® products. Ease of set up and use by students still learning about the real-time environment were also crucial requirements. In addition, the solution needed to be general enough to support diverse interfaces and functions.

Speedgoat products, the Baseline Education real-time target machine (hereinafter Baseline) and simultaneous sampling 16-bit analog I/O module, the IO183 EDU-Baseline, were chosen as a solution because Speedgoat products were specifically designed to work within the MATLAB^® and Simulink^® environment.

Thanks to the seamless integration of Speedgoat products with the MathWorks^® product family, it allowed the students to quickly implement and execute these real-time methods and algorithms without having to worry about setup issues or having to do cumbersome modifications of the software or hardware first to get the system working.

An additional benefit of working with Speedgoat products was the educational value of teaching the students about strict real-time constraints, deterministic execution of numerical routines, sampling, quantization-related issues, amongst other things.

The simple one-click compilation to produce a real-time executable code from the efficient Simulink^®-based programming allowed students to make a rapid prototype design of the control systems and test them on real industrial equipment without exchanging or adapting interface components.

- Ease of setup and configuration

- Quick implementation and execution of real-time methods and algorithms

- One-click compilation of code

- No cumbersome hardware or software modifications thanks to MathWorks^® product compatibility

- Attractive price-performance ratio allowed 42 students to work in smaller groups simultaneously