Collegewide laboratory-based program in control systems technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

We are developing a network of laboratories to support undergraduate and graduate education in Control Systems Technology in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The cornerstone of our program is a centralized Core Laboratory, The College of Engineering Control Systems Laboratory, which provides basic instruction in feedback control systems to all Departments in the College of Engineering. This core laboratory feeds into a network of satellite laboratories, which are designed to provide both vertical and horizontal integration of control systems and related technology across departmental boundaries in the engineering curriculum. By elevating control systems laboratory development from the Department level to the College level we have gained a number of advantages including, more efficient use of space and equipment, better leveraging of funds, elimination of overlap among individual departmental labs, better integration of control systems technology in the curriculum, the ability to hire a full time professional to manage the laboratory, and increased visibility with industry. At the same time we retain the integrity and autonomy of the separate Departmental curricula. This paper describes our concept and our initial experiences in this laboratory development. We focus here on the description of the Core Laboratory while briefly describing the first group of satellite laboratories under development.