A low cost laboratory exercise that exposes students to a technically challenging engineering project and relies on teamwork has been developed and used successfully in an undergraduate course given to electrical engineering students. The project focuses on speed control of a small permanent-magnet d.c. electric motor and forms a major practical component of a senior control engineering course. The stated problem is to design, implement and evaluate an automatic feedback controller that solves an extremely difficult motor control problem that requires both theoretical and practical skills for its satisfactory conclusion.
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