An online benchmark for control engineering education

Organiser

Jose Luis Guzman (Unversity of Almeira, Spain)

Sponsoring IFAC Body

IFAC TC 9.4 Control Education

Link

https://tc.ifac-control.org/9/4

Overview

We propose to develop an online international benchmark for control engineering education that can be used for free. Moreover, this benchmark would be used as part of international competitions in IFAC Symposiums and Conferences.

Benchmarks in control education have been used in Spain since 10 years ago. The idea was promoted by the Spanish Control Engineering Group (belonging to the Spanish Committee of Automatics), where every year a national competition was open for a specific benchmark problem (based on industrial processes: boilers, refrigeration systems, drone, etc.). Then, students and teachers from different Spanish Universities use the benchmark as part of their subjects during the academic course, and they present the results to that national competition. In a first step, the best three teams are classified, and they compete again in a second round. Finally, the best team is announced every year at the National Conference of Automatic Control. There are two different categories, one for undergraduate students and another for PhD students. The winner team receives a certificate from the Spanish Committee of Automatics and a prize of 300 € sponsored by the Spanish representation of the Instrument Society of Automation (ISA). The experience during these 10 years has been fantastic for teachers and students.