Remote system identification in the "Automatic Control Telelab" environment

This paper describes recent improvements of the Automatic Control Telelab (ACT), a remote laboratory of automatic control developed at the University of Siena. In particular, it focuses on a new tool which allows students to perform system identification experiments on remote processes by means of both classical (statistical) and set-membership (deterministic) techniques. Through this machinery, students can identify a suitable dynamic model of a process, design a controller and then test its behaviour remotely. The ACT home page is: http://www.dii.unisi.it//spl sim/control/act.

I. Introduction

Tele-laboratories are instances of the more general distance education problems which is attracting a wide attention in the academic and government communities. Automatic Control is one of the technical areas which most exploited the new technologies to develop new tools for distance learning [1]. A thorough treatment about control education by means of web technologies has been recently reported in [2].