Teaching Classical Control In Et Programs; Time For Reassessment?

This paper is based on the recommendations made by the National Science Foundation and Control Systems Society of IEEE. In light of those recommendations and issues discussed at a NSF/CSS workshop, the author raises the question of appropriate contents for a control system course as taught in a typical first course ET program. Presently, the majority of electrical, some mechanical and almost all electromechanical engineering technology programs have a course in their curriculum called control systems. Even though they carry the same name, most often their contents are drastically different. In many programs the focus of the course is on the application of typical classical control. There are some programs where the whole course is about application and programming of micro-controllers. There are also programs where the emphasis of the course is entirely on the study of instrumentation and programmable logic controllers. In this paper an attempt will be made to find an answer to the question of what is the appropriate content for a typical first course in control systems to be taught in a typical ET program. The argument will be made that the recommendations made by NSF and Control System Society of IEEE can easily be implemented and therefore should be considered.