Teaching Controls with MATLAB and Simulink

Educators teach controls with MATLAB and Simulink by drawing on available course modules, onramp tutorials, and code examples.

Apps provided with Control System Toolbox let users interactively design and analyze control systems as well as graphically tune PID controllers and lead/lag compensators using root locus, Bode diagrams, and Nichols charts. Educators can use MATLAB live scripts to create lectures that combine explanatory text, mathematical equations, code, and results. Live Editor tasks that can be inserted into live scripts let students perform control design tasks, such as tuning PID controllers, interactively.

Below is a sampling of course curricula, textbooks, educational videos, code examples, online labs, and additional tools for teaching controls with MATLAB and Simulink.

Downloadable Controls Course Materials to Help Develop and Enhance Curriculum

• Control Tutorials for MATLAB and Simulink (Related Webinar (45:55))
• Reinforcement Learning Teaching Modules (Related Webinar (22:50))
• Intelligent control system courseware
• Control System 101 courseware
• Control of Mobile Robots
• Embedded Control and Mechatronics
• Aeronautical Systems-Guidance and Control
• Modeling, Design, and Control of Robotic Mechanisms
• Electromechanical Engineering Systems
• Transfer Function Analysis of Dynamic Systems Courseware
• Lab-in-a-Box Approach for Teaching Control: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice (23:15)

Virtual, Remote, and Low-Cost Hardware-Based Labs Developed by Instructors and MathWorks

• Kalman Filter Virtual Lab by MathWorks
• Virtual Controls Laboratory by MathWorks
• Interactive Live Script Control Tutorials for MATLAB and Simulink (You can run the tutorials in your browser without installing MATLAB.)
• Arduino-Based Lab Activities for MATLAB and Simulink (Related webinar (47:00))
• Robotarium: Remote Access Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech (Related webinar (33:34))
• Teaching Dynamics and Control with Arduino-based TCLab (Related Webinar (47:56))
• Virtual Vibrations and Controls Labs using Simscape (Related webinar (30:16)
• Virtual Control Labs by RWTH Aachen University
• Duino-Based Learning for Control Engineering Courses

Videos

MATLAB Tech Talks are short educational videos that teach different controls concepts to students. These videos can help supplement instructors’ curriculum materials.

• Introduction to Controls
• PID Control
• Reinforcement Learning
• Model Predictive Control
• Robust Control

Check out other MATLAB Tech Talks

Auto Grading with MATLAB

Use MATLAB Grader to create interactive course assignments, automatically grade student work, and provide feedback.

• System Dynamics and Control Problem Collection (This MATLAB Grader collection includes sample problems that use MATLAB to enhance conceptual and practical understanding of different controls concepts in modeling, systems analysis, and controller design.)
• Automating Grading of Assignments in a MATLAB Programming Course by Duarte G.T. Antunes, Eindhoven University of Technology
• Automated Grading with a Software-Checking Program in the System Dynamics and Control Curriculum by Richard C. Hill, University of Detroit Mercy

Textbooks

• Control Systems Engineering
• Feedback Control of Dynamic Systems
• Modern Control Systems
• MATLAB for Control Engineers
• Fundamentals of Linear Control
• Nonlinear Control

See more books

Technical Articles and Customer Stories

• Engineering Professor Transitions to Virtual Labs for Remote Learning
• Using MATLAB Live Scripts to Teach Optimal Control and Dynamic Programming Online
• RWTH Aachen University Prepares Students for Careers in Industry
• University of Sydney Students Experience Flight Dynamics in the Variable Stability Flight Simulator
• Engaging Students in Hands-on Control System Design at University of Arizona
• Northeastern University Rolls Out Reinforcement Learning with MATLAB and Simulink