Modern mechanical systems are becoming increasingly reliant on sophisticated methods of sensing, signal processing, and control technology. Within this industry, rapid growth in terms of function, flexibility, and reliability is being paralleled with a comparable rise in complexity. From the human resource point of view, the implication of this trend is clear: college education must appropriately advance the technical level of undergraduate education in order to serve the needs of modern industry. As part of a concerted college effort to meet this challenge, an application-oriented laboratory on microprocessor and intelligent control applications is provided to enhance undergraduate hands-on experience by providing exercises that emphasize detailed modeling, basic controller design, simulation, practical considerations, and implementation; simultaneously, to expose students to current and emerging technology (e.g., smart instrumentation and actuation using piezoelectric elements/shape memory alloy and intelligent control systems design for instance based on fuzzy logic); and to improve students' integrative thinking and teamwork skills through interdisciplinary faculty instruction, team formations, and open-ended assignments. The new laboratory is the accompanying laboratory to an existing undergraduate course entitled Electromechanical System Control and Microprocessor Applications. While the emphasis is to serve this course, the facility of the new laboratory affects several other undergraduate and graduate courses within the department. New equipment includes one Windows NT server, one printer, multi-application boards, training units in microcontroller applications, 1/0 interface boards, real-time kernel and control toolbox software, dc motors, and servo amplifiers. *
