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TEACHING CONTROL: BENEFITS OF ANIMATED TUTORIALS FROM VIEWPOINT OF CONTROL STUDENTS
TEACHING CONTROL: BENEFITS OF ANIMATED TUTORIALS FROM VIEWPOINT OF CONTROL STUDENTS
Abbas Khan Intelligent Control Systems Laboratory, Griffith University [email protected] Ljubo Vlacic Intelligent Control Systems Laboratory, Griffith University [email protected] Abstract: Significant developments in the effective teaching of control education over the past few decades, since the emergence of new software and IT technologies, have made control education more efficient. Animated Tutorials are a clear illustration of this, and will aid control engineering students in their quest to study control topics in a productive and cost effective manner. This paper discusses how these animated tutorials can benefit control engineering students. However, there is a need for educators to work more closely with Multimedia and Software development in conjunction with animated tutorials to make teaching more effective. Copyright © 2006 IFAC. Keywords: Animated Control Tutorial; Web-based Learning; Control Education.
1. INTRODUCTION Over the past few decades numerous control engineering techniques have been merged with IT Technologies. For even more effectiveness, there comes a point where control students require a lot more than just conventional teaching and learning methods. Students would prefer to study and undertake research on their personal computer, in their own space, and discover and understand new ideas and principles in control systems. To help them understand the concepts, animated tutorials can play a vital role. Without developing the complex hardware, they can understand the concepts and theory of a control topic by simply using animated tutorials, accessible via a website from their personal computers. Nowadays students can acquire skills not only by formal teaching methods, but also through practical knowledge either independently or in teams working in a real world environment, for example, industry based research. The student assumes the central role as the active architect of his/her desired knowledge and skills, rather than passively absorbing information delivered by the teacher. Technology alone can never be a solution, but in the hands of a knowledgeable teacher, appropriately designed technology can become a useful tool. The new IT and multimedia
technologies can be more effective if an imaginative component is added to the educational needs (Copinga, Verhaegen, & van de Ven, 2000; Poindexter & Heck, 1999), or simply by expressing what the developer is thinking about a certain control process. The latest developments in software and multimedia technologies have provided new ways of interactive learning in automatic control (Garcia and Heck, 1999). These software tools are able to graphically show a control process, and its dynamics, more clearly than can be expressed in a book. Ictools and CCSdemo (Johansson, Gäfvert, & Åström, 1998; Wittenmark et al., 1998) developed at the Department of Automatic Control, Lund Institute of Technology, and SysQuake at the Institut’ Automátique, Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Piguet, 1999; Piguet, Holmberg, & Longchamp, 1999) are good examples of interactive software tools for teaching automatic control. No matter what kind of software or platform is used for creating animation, the students are more concerned about how clearly a topic or theory is explained and animated, as well as how easy it is to visualize the topic. Due to the complex nature of control engineering problems, extended mathematical formulae and a vast set of issues, specific to numerous real world
problems, traditional teaching is never sufficient for students to grasp the ideas, and that is why many lecturers and researchers make use of graphics, tables, audio and visual technologies. Due to the increased popularity and accessibility of multimedia tools, we are entering a new era of multimedia development in control systems engineering studies to enhance the understanding and visualization of control engineering problems.
The tutorials section of the website addresses the following control engineering topics:
2. CURRENT SYSTEM AT GU
Each of the above topics is explained in detail with the aid of a supporting case study, examples, assignments and, most importantly, animated tutorials developed in Macromedia Flash. Each animation is interactive and the user can select a wide range of possible values for the variables.
Griffith University’s Intelligent Control Systems Laboratory (ICSL) website is offering a variety of quality control system animations and simulations closely related to control engineering topics and case studies. These animated control tutorials are to be used by both control systems educators and control systems students.
Time Response Steady-State Error Stability Root Locus Nyquist Design
Constantly being updated from recent research and new terminologies, the website is playing an important role in enhancing the learning of control systems students. Rapid changes in web technology will also have an effect on control animations and their use on different user platforms. The way students use these control animations will obviously change in line with changes in web technology. There has been a lot more remote use of laboratories through online laboratories over the internet and a number of applications and programs have been developed around the world to achieve this goal. Control animations can be incorporated in laboratory experiments to help better understand a topic.
Figure 1. ICSL Homepage (includes options to select from applications, tutorials, assignments and lab experiments) The entire website mainly focuses on control system topics and addresses: • • • • • •
decision theory, control systems, intelligent control, artificial intelligence, computer & systems engineering and control education.
The website is well modeled and helps control systems students to easily browse and thus satisfy their needs.
3. HOW ANIMATIONS CAN HELP STUDENTS Apart from gaming and simple simulation programs, students are now using computer animated graphics and applications for learning and research. A program like MATLAB has its own simulation tools (SIMULINK) and the latest versions of MATLAB also enable communication between MATLAB and remote users over the internet to perform a variety of calculation tasks. On the ICSL website, a number of case studies are available and they deal with various control engineering topics. Each topic is discussed with the aid of animated tutorials and examples which make it very easy for a student to understand and
visualize the control theory’s basic concepts. This helps students to implement and research further and develop their practical skills and knowledge. Most of the animations are designed in Macromedia Flash which makes them even more accessible from different platforms.
3.1 An example illustrating the benefit to students 3.1.1 Steady State Error Animation By selecting the steady state error link, the student is taken to a problem case and specifications. The student is then encouraged to solve the problem first by using his/her own knowledge, using traditional tools and advanced tools like MATLAB to solve this problem. Later on, the student is also provided with a detailed, MATLAB-based, solution to the problem.
Figure 3. Interactive Animation As seen in Figure 3, the graph shows the system dynamics where the lift can stop on any floor individually selected. For example, in this case, the lift stopped at floor 1 and floor 3.
Figure 2. Problem definition for an example case The animation can be run a number of times, for different error values, gains, etc. After solving the example, the animation button is pressed, an animation window is opened and students can interactively select the option to repeat the example with different values of gain K. The animation is interactive, and has a number of options to select from. Users can run the animation for three different values of gain K and also have the option to select their own input In the animation illustrated in Figure 3 the values, for example a floor number or multiple floor numbers, can be selected as if this was a real lift.
Figure 4. Animation with K=100 After pressing the K button for the value selected, the animation is run for that value of K and a response is generated. The response for K=3.33 and K=33.3 are shown in Figures 5 and 6.
3.1.2 The robotic arm (Robot tennis player) Let’s take another example, a case where the animation will help us to analyze a robotic arm used to play tennis. Several cases can be derived from this example, and the animation shows output step responses for different values of K (0.65, 0.9 and 0.56). The animation starts with a block diagram and overall system, a robotic arm and a graph which will be animated to show the effect of different gain values.
Figure 5. Animation for K=3.33
Figure 7. Overall robotic arm system By pressing the play button the robotic arm moves across the area and tries to hit the ball at different speeds.
Figure 6. Animation with K=33.3 After the animation is finished, the user can click on the colored dots on the graph and it gives the peak time, overshoot and rise time at that point. This helps the understanding of the variation in system behavior for different values of K. The interactivity provides practical knowledge of the real world environment. For students some concepts are initially difficult to understand, due to the fact that control properties are expressed in two different domains: time and frequency. Transient behavior, such as settling time, overshooting, and the risk of saturation are analyzed typically in the time domain; while concepts like stability, noise rejection, and robustness are expressed more easily in the frequency domain.
Figure 8. For a gain of K=0.9 the robotic arm misses the ball
By using these animations the students not only learn and understand the topics and case studies, but also are encouraged to create more animations for particular problems, which will obviously help other students.
3.2 Other Educational benefits and learning outcomes Development of new animation software, such as SysQuake, Macromedia Flash, etc., makes it easier to develop custom animations and illustrate the way the developer thinks.
Figure 9. A comparison of different gain values
Web based animations and simulations are more beneficial and useful in terms of the various aspects listed below: • • • • • • • •
Figure 10. For a gain of K=0.56 the robotic arm hits the ball As we run through the animation as depicted, the arm tries to hit the ball with different motions and angles. On the first attempt, K2=0.9, the arm misses the ball completely (Figure 8) the second attempt, K1=0.65, it hits the ball but not properly due to angle error, but on the third attempt, Kbest=0.56, it hits the ball (Figure 10). This example will lead to better design and help the student to understand how different cases and requirements can be solved with control system engineering skills. The basic mechanisms that relate these and other phenomena, for example, the effects of sampling and non-linear elements, can be illustrated very effectively using these tools and enhance student learning of the topics to a high degree (Dormido, Control learning, 2003). So far, it has been demonstrated that these animations and multimedia tools are vital to visualization of these concepts.
• •
• •
•
Cost effectiveness; Easy accessibility from around the world; Easy management; Simple and easy for the student to understand; Interactivity adding more value; Teaching and delivering knowledge simplified; Creation of more animations is carried out by the student community; Students can make use of online web animated tutorials where the student cannot access library resources, or is unable to attend formal lectures, or use print media; Use of IT resources while researching control engineering will give more students a better understanding of the topic; Control engineering software tools and multimedia applications will become cheaper with a student version available and accessible online making it easy for students to learn, perform and analyze experiments through animations (S. Dormido, Conceptual Learning of Control by Java Based simulations, 2000); Multimedia animations will certainly widen the student’s scope for learning by encouraging internet based education; Animations will also benefit the Work Integrated Learning (WIL) environment for control education, where several other recommendations are made to encourage and develop WIL by Mikulas Huba (Integrated Learning Environment for control education, ACE 2000); “The animations can perhaps build up the rational philosophy, chronological
•
•
understanding and study skills” Mikulas Huba (Integrated Learning Environment for control education, ACE 2000); Animated control tutorials can be used in lectures and group discussions between the lecturer and students and will help the students to better understand the topic while the lecture can be recorded and made available for further understanding; and “This new teaching style and contributing new technologies will pave the teaching methods to be more flexible and easier for the lecturer, and definitely will free up staff time from repetitive queries, and aspects of their teaching.” Mikulas Huba (Integrated Learning Environment for control education, ACE 2000).
4. RECOMMENDATIONS The main focus of this paper is on educating control students but these animations could help with online examinations though this paper does not address this issue. Animated tutorials will certainly be necessary for all control systems students to achieve more effective learning of control engineering theory. To standardize the animations, they need to be kept constantly in line with changing web technologies, and use standardized design software, which will develop the animations keeping in mind how they will be used by students, not by the developer. Joint ventures between different universities and research institutions are also recommended to encourage control engineering students to develop and use animation design software.
5. CONCLUSION Control engineering students will make frequent use of web technologies for their studies and research, rather than use the traditional method of research, through library resources, and will constantly be making use of animations and online experiments. This work will not only include the education providers’ role but also a role for the students. More work is required by education providers in providing tools and effective material for students to implement, as well as more development in the field of animated tutorials over a wide range of
case studies and example cases for the benefit of students.
6. REFERENCES Copinga, G. J., Verhaegen, M. H., & van de Ven, M. J. (2000). Toward a web-based study support environment for teaching automatic control. IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 20(4), 8–19. Dormido, Control learning, Present and future 2003, Annual Reviews in Control 28 (2004) 115–136. Dormido, Conceptual Learning of Control by Java Based simulations, 2000, IFAC 2000, AUS. Garcia, R. C., & Heck, B. S. (1999). Enhancing classical controls education via interactive GUI design. IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 19(3), 77–82. Johansson, M., Gäfvert, M., & Åström, K. J. (1998). Interactive tools for education in automatic control. IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 18(3), 33–40. Mikulas Huba, Integrated Learning Environment for control education, ACE 2000, IFAC, AUS. Piguet, Y. (1999). SysQuake: User manual. Calerga. Piguet, Y., Holmberg, U., & Longchamp, R. (1999). Instantaneous performance visualization for graphical control design methods. 14th IFAC World Congress. Beijing, China. Poindexter, S. E., & Heck, B. S. (1999). Using the web in your courses: What can you do? What should you do? IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 19(1), 83–92.
Abbas Khan Intelligent Control Systems Laboratory, Griffith University [email protected] Ljubo Vlacic Intelligent Control Systems Laboratory, Griffith University [email protected] Abstract: Significant developments in the effective teaching of control education over the past few decades, since the emergence of new software and IT technologies, have made control education more efficient. Animated Tutorials are a clear illustration of this, and will aid control engineering students in their quest to study control topics in a productive and cost effective manner. This paper discusses how these animated tutorials can benefit control engineering students. However, there is a need for educators to work more closely with Multimedia and Software development in conjunction with animated tutorials to make teaching more effective. Copyright © 2006 IFAC. Keywords: Animated Control Tutorial; Web-based Learning; Control Education.
1. INTRODUCTION Over the past few decades numerous control engineering techniques have been merged with IT Technologies. For even more effectiveness, there comes a point where control students require a lot more than just conventional teaching and learning methods. Students would prefer to study and undertake research on their personal computer, in their own space, and discover and understand new ideas and principles in control systems. To help them understand the concepts, animated tutorials can play a vital role. Without developing the complex hardware, they can understand the concepts and theory of a control topic by simply using animated tutorials, accessible via a website from their personal computers. Nowadays students can acquire skills not only by formal teaching methods, but also through practical knowledge either independently or in teams working in a real world environment, for example, industry based research. The student assumes the central role as the active architect of his/her desired knowledge and skills, rather than passively absorbing information delivered by the teacher. Technology alone can never be a solution, but in the hands of a knowledgeable teacher, appropriately designed technology can become a useful tool. The new IT and multimedia
technologies can be more effective if an imaginative component is added to the educational needs (Copinga, Verhaegen, & van de Ven, 2000; Poindexter & Heck, 1999), or simply by expressing what the developer is thinking about a certain control process. The latest developments in software and multimedia technologies have provided new ways of interactive learning in automatic control (Garcia and Heck, 1999). These software tools are able to graphically show a control process, and its dynamics, more clearly than can be expressed in a book. Ictools and CCSdemo (Johansson, Gäfvert, & Åström, 1998; Wittenmark et al., 1998) developed at the Department of Automatic Control, Lund Institute of Technology, and SysQuake at the Institut’ Automátique, Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Piguet, 1999; Piguet, Holmberg, & Longchamp, 1999) are good examples of interactive software tools for teaching automatic control. No matter what kind of software or platform is used for creating animation, the students are more concerned about how clearly a topic or theory is explained and animated, as well as how easy it is to visualize the topic. Due to the complex nature of control engineering problems, extended mathematical formulae and a vast set of issues, specific to numerous real world
problems, traditional teaching is never sufficient for students to grasp the ideas, and that is why many lecturers and researchers make use of graphics, tables, audio and visual technologies. Due to the increased popularity and accessibility of multimedia tools, we are entering a new era of multimedia development in control systems engineering studies to enhance the understanding and visualization of control engineering problems.
The tutorials section of the website addresses the following control engineering topics:
2. CURRENT SYSTEM AT GU
Each of the above topics is explained in detail with the aid of a supporting case study, examples, assignments and, most importantly, animated tutorials developed in Macromedia Flash. Each animation is interactive and the user can select a wide range of possible values for the variables.
Griffith University’s Intelligent Control Systems Laboratory (ICSL) website is offering a variety of quality control system animations and simulations closely related to control engineering topics and case studies. These animated control tutorials are to be used by both control systems educators and control systems students.
Time Response Steady-State Error Stability Root Locus Nyquist Design
Constantly being updated from recent research and new terminologies, the website is playing an important role in enhancing the learning of control systems students. Rapid changes in web technology will also have an effect on control animations and their use on different user platforms. The way students use these control animations will obviously change in line with changes in web technology. There has been a lot more remote use of laboratories through online laboratories over the internet and a number of applications and programs have been developed around the world to achieve this goal. Control animations can be incorporated in laboratory experiments to help better understand a topic.
Figure 1. ICSL Homepage (includes options to select from applications, tutorials, assignments and lab experiments) The entire website mainly focuses on control system topics and addresses: • • • • • •
decision theory, control systems, intelligent control, artificial intelligence, computer & systems engineering and control education.
The website is well modeled and helps control systems students to easily browse and thus satisfy their needs.
3. HOW ANIMATIONS CAN HELP STUDENTS Apart from gaming and simple simulation programs, students are now using computer animated graphics and applications for learning and research. A program like MATLAB has its own simulation tools (SIMULINK) and the latest versions of MATLAB also enable communication between MATLAB and remote users over the internet to perform a variety of calculation tasks. On the ICSL website, a number of case studies are available and they deal with various control engineering topics. Each topic is discussed with the aid of animated tutorials and examples which make it very easy for a student to understand and
visualize the control theory’s basic concepts. This helps students to implement and research further and develop their practical skills and knowledge. Most of the animations are designed in Macromedia Flash which makes them even more accessible from different platforms.
3.1 An example illustrating the benefit to students 3.1.1 Steady State Error Animation By selecting the steady state error link, the student is taken to a problem case and specifications. The student is then encouraged to solve the problem first by using his/her own knowledge, using traditional tools and advanced tools like MATLAB to solve this problem. Later on, the student is also provided with a detailed, MATLAB-based, solution to the problem.
Figure 3. Interactive Animation As seen in Figure 3, the graph shows the system dynamics where the lift can stop on any floor individually selected. For example, in this case, the lift stopped at floor 1 and floor 3.
Figure 2. Problem definition for an example case The animation can be run a number of times, for different error values, gains, etc. After solving the example, the animation button is pressed, an animation window is opened and students can interactively select the option to repeat the example with different values of gain K. The animation is interactive, and has a number of options to select from. Users can run the animation for three different values of gain K and also have the option to select their own input In the animation illustrated in Figure 3 the values, for example a floor number or multiple floor numbers, can be selected as if this was a real lift.
Figure 4. Animation with K=100 After pressing the K button for the value selected, the animation is run for that value of K and a response is generated. The response for K=3.33 and K=33.3 are shown in Figures 5 and 6.
3.1.2 The robotic arm (Robot tennis player) Let’s take another example, a case where the animation will help us to analyze a robotic arm used to play tennis. Several cases can be derived from this example, and the animation shows output step responses for different values of K (0.65, 0.9 and 0.56). The animation starts with a block diagram and overall system, a robotic arm and a graph which will be animated to show the effect of different gain values.
Figure 5. Animation for K=3.33
Figure 7. Overall robotic arm system By pressing the play button the robotic arm moves across the area and tries to hit the ball at different speeds.
Figure 6. Animation with K=33.3 After the animation is finished, the user can click on the colored dots on the graph and it gives the peak time, overshoot and rise time at that point. This helps the understanding of the variation in system behavior for different values of K. The interactivity provides practical knowledge of the real world environment. For students some concepts are initially difficult to understand, due to the fact that control properties are expressed in two different domains: time and frequency. Transient behavior, such as settling time, overshooting, and the risk of saturation are analyzed typically in the time domain; while concepts like stability, noise rejection, and robustness are expressed more easily in the frequency domain.
Figure 8. For a gain of K=0.9 the robotic arm misses the ball
By using these animations the students not only learn and understand the topics and case studies, but also are encouraged to create more animations for particular problems, which will obviously help other students.
3.2 Other Educational benefits and learning outcomes Development of new animation software, such as SysQuake, Macromedia Flash, etc., makes it easier to develop custom animations and illustrate the way the developer thinks.
Figure 9. A comparison of different gain values
Web based animations and simulations are more beneficial and useful in terms of the various aspects listed below: • • • • • • • •
Figure 10. For a gain of K=0.56 the robotic arm hits the ball As we run through the animation as depicted, the arm tries to hit the ball with different motions and angles. On the first attempt, K2=0.9, the arm misses the ball completely (Figure 8) the second attempt, K1=0.65, it hits the ball but not properly due to angle error, but on the third attempt, Kbest=0.56, it hits the ball (Figure 10). This example will lead to better design and help the student to understand how different cases and requirements can be solved with control system engineering skills. The basic mechanisms that relate these and other phenomena, for example, the effects of sampling and non-linear elements, can be illustrated very effectively using these tools and enhance student learning of the topics to a high degree (Dormido, Control learning, 2003). So far, it has been demonstrated that these animations and multimedia tools are vital to visualization of these concepts.
• •
• •
•
Cost effectiveness; Easy accessibility from around the world; Easy management; Simple and easy for the student to understand; Interactivity adding more value; Teaching and delivering knowledge simplified; Creation of more animations is carried out by the student community; Students can make use of online web animated tutorials where the student cannot access library resources, or is unable to attend formal lectures, or use print media; Use of IT resources while researching control engineering will give more students a better understanding of the topic; Control engineering software tools and multimedia applications will become cheaper with a student version available and accessible online making it easy for students to learn, perform and analyze experiments through animations (S. Dormido, Conceptual Learning of Control by Java Based simulations, 2000); Multimedia animations will certainly widen the student’s scope for learning by encouraging internet based education; Animations will also benefit the Work Integrated Learning (WIL) environment for control education, where several other recommendations are made to encourage and develop WIL by Mikulas Huba (Integrated Learning Environment for control education, ACE 2000); “The animations can perhaps build up the rational philosophy, chronological
•
•
understanding and study skills” Mikulas Huba (Integrated Learning Environment for control education, ACE 2000); Animated control tutorials can be used in lectures and group discussions between the lecturer and students and will help the students to better understand the topic while the lecture can be recorded and made available for further understanding; and “This new teaching style and contributing new technologies will pave the teaching methods to be more flexible and easier for the lecturer, and definitely will free up staff time from repetitive queries, and aspects of their teaching.” Mikulas Huba (Integrated Learning Environment for control education, ACE 2000).
4. RECOMMENDATIONS The main focus of this paper is on educating control students but these animations could help with online examinations though this paper does not address this issue. Animated tutorials will certainly be necessary for all control systems students to achieve more effective learning of control engineering theory. To standardize the animations, they need to be kept constantly in line with changing web technologies, and use standardized design software, which will develop the animations keeping in mind how they will be used by students, not by the developer. Joint ventures between different universities and research institutions are also recommended to encourage control engineering students to develop and use animation design software.
5. CONCLUSION Control engineering students will make frequent use of web technologies for their studies and research, rather than use the traditional method of research, through library resources, and will constantly be making use of animations and online experiments. This work will not only include the education providers’ role but also a role for the students. More work is required by education providers in providing tools and effective material for students to implement, as well as more development in the field of animated tutorials over a wide range of
case studies and example cases for the benefit of students.
6. REFERENCES Copinga, G. J., Verhaegen, M. H., & van de Ven, M. J. (2000). Toward a web-based study support environment for teaching automatic control. IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 20(4), 8–19. Dormido, Control learning, Present and future 2003, Annual Reviews in Control 28 (2004) 115–136. Dormido, Conceptual Learning of Control by Java Based simulations, 2000, IFAC 2000, AUS. Garcia, R. C., & Heck, B. S. (1999). Enhancing classical controls education via interactive GUI design. IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 19(3), 77–82. Johansson, M., Gäfvert, M., & Åström, K. J. (1998). Interactive tools for education in automatic control. IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 18(3), 33–40. Mikulas Huba, Integrated Learning Environment for control education, ACE 2000, IFAC, AUS. Piguet, Y. (1999). SysQuake: User manual. Calerga. Piguet, Y., Holmberg, U., & Longchamp, R. (1999). Instantaneous performance visualization for graphical control design methods. 14th IFAC World Congress. Beijing, China. Poindexter, S. E., & Heck, B. S. (1999). Using the web in your courses: What can you do? What should you do? IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 19(1), 83–92.