DESCRIPTION

Technical Description

This experimental unit aids introduction to industrial control engineering. The objective is to control the temperature in a virtual room. The individual components of this temperature control loop are laid out separately on panels. They are inserted in the frame and interconnected by cables.
 
The controlled system is a soldering iron. The soldering iron represents the heater in the virtual room. The room, with a temperature sensor, is mapped out on the panel as an aid to understanding. The real temperature sensor is a thermocouple on the tip of the soldering iron. The transducer converts the temperature signal from the thermocouple into a standard voltage signal. This signal is sent to the input of an industrial controller. There the signal is compared against the reference variable. The controller sends a signal corresponding to the variation (manipulating variable) to the actuator. The actuator is a power controller which influences the electrical power to the soldering iron.

To generate disturbance variables, metal plates with differing thermal conductivities can be attached to the soldering iron. The industrial controller is parameterisable as a P, PD, PI or PID controller. It can also function as a two-point controller. The controlled variable (virtual room temperature) and the manipulating variable are displayed digitally.

A line recorder (RT 200.01) is available as an accessory to record the control processes.

The well-structured instructional material sets out the fundamentals and provides a step-by-step guide through the experiments.

Learning Objectives / Experiments

- components of a control loop
- operation and parameterisation of an industrial controller
- comparison of various controller types
  * P, PD, PI and PID controllers
  * two-point controller
- layout of control loops
  * open control loop
  * closed control loop
- disturbance feedforward control