The modern undergraduate course in process control must cover not only theory, but also state-of-the-art control instrumentation. Great improvements have been made in recent years in microprocessor-based controllers which can be configured, tuned, and operated from a personal computer. In addition to conventional PID algorithms, the new instruments have many built-in features such as transport lag, logic functions, alarm blocks, linearization blocks, adaptive gain, and self-tuning. In order to upgrade the control laboratories three sets of equipment are required. Each set includes four Taylor MOD-30 instruments (two controllers, one math unit, one recorder), an IBM personal computer with Taylor software, and a communication link for operating the instruments from the computer. With this equipment, a wide variety of experiments will be developed which range from basic single-loop control systems to complex systems involving all of the instruments. Advanced experiments to be developed for which these modern instruments are ideally suited include cascade control, feedforward control, adaptive control, self-tuning, and over-ride control.
