Description :  The Electrical Engineering Program at Louisiana Tech University is the main source of highly-trained electrical engineers for Louisiana’s industry and economy. One of the main areas of concentration in undergraduate electrical engineering curriculum is control systems, which generates strong interest and high enrollment within the College of Engineering and Science. Unfortunately, the undergraduate control systems laboratory has been limited to simulations without practical, hands-on experiments. Consequently, our graduates have lacked practical, hands-on experience in this important area. To enhance undergraduate control system education at Louisiana Tech, a hands-on, instructional control system laboratory has been developed with experiments that illustrate basic engineering control systems principles. Experimental setups enable students to study control systems concepts, verify existing algorithms and develop new ones, and gain experience solving practical engineering problems that they will face in industry. This new lab impacts students in several engineering programs, thus improving the engineering education, training, and technology skills of Louisiana Tech graduates and future engineers and providing direct economic benefit to the State of Louisiana and the whole nation.

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Principal Investigator:  Selmic, Rastko  --  Electrical Engineering

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Collaborators:  Robert Szlavik

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Funding Agencies:  Board of Regents

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Amount Awarded:  $56,500

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Start Period:  06/01/2004

End Period:  06/30/2005