A University Course and Laboratory on RCS
A university course has been given on RCS and here we give some ideas on how this course ran to provide ideas on how to implement such a course (or at least a laboratory) on RCS.
There are basically two formats that you could consider:
Syllabus Department of Electrical Engineering The Ohio State University EE 758 Control Laboratory II (Real Time Control Software for Complex Control Systems Development) |
Prerequisites: Knowledge of C programming, signals and systems,
and control design. You do not need to have taken EE 757 to take this class.
If you took EE 758 in Sp'97 you can also take this course (but in this case
see the instructor to work out how to get credit for the class).
Objectives: To develop and implement distributed real-time control systems using the NIST Real Time Control Software (RCS) and to develop control modules using a variety of conventional and intelligent control methods.
Class Topic | Laboratory Topic | |
Week 1 | RCS Introduction (CMS/NML Overview) | Laboratory hardware (data acquisition card) |
Week 2 | Programming in the neutral message language (NML) | Laboratory software (C, C++ programming, OS, network) |
Week 3 | Writing NML configuration files, RCS diagnostics | Pendulum experiment (controller development) |
Week 4 | Other classes and functions in the RCS library | Pendulum experiment (RCS implementation) |
Week 5 | RCS applications (overview and simulation) | Tank experiment (level, temperature controller development) |
Week 6 | RCS development project overview | Tank experiment (RCS implementation) |
Week 7 | Distributed control problem (background, real-world details) | Project: low level control design (distributed control experiment) |
Week 8 | RCS Design review | RCS design/implementation |
Week 9 | RCS design review | RCS implementation and testing |
Week 10 | RCS design report (student presentations) | RCS demonstration (student demonstrates RCS experiment) |
Above, the approach is to introduce RCS on a very simple academic control problem (the pendulum), and then to demonstrate a hierarchical design for the tank experiment where we have low level temperature and level controls, and a higher-level supervisor (and monitoring and human interface functions on a remote computer). The students then use RCS for two different experiments, and exercise most of the functions in the RCS Library.