A Virtual Laboratory for System

Simulation and Control With

Undergraduate Curriculum
MUSTAFA S. AYAS, ISMAIL H. ALTAS
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Karadeniz Technical University,
Trabzon 61080, Turkey

Received 10 February 2015; accepted 9 July 2015

ABSTRACT: System modelling and simulation are essential in engineering especially in automatic control
systems (ACS) engineering. At many universities, undergraduate curricula include systems and control courses
with dynamic modelling and simulations in their syllabi. In order to design a controller for a physical system, one
has to know the operational behaviors of that system very well so that a proper controller could be designed.
Keeping this in mind, educational computer-aided software with a user-friendly visual interface was developed. The
software provides an opportunity for students to simulate physical systems without and with the controllers they
designed. Since it was developed to accompany undergraduate control system courses, the main purpose of this
software was to create an interactive, practical, visual, and functional environment for the students who taking ACS
courses. Therefore, it was called as virtual control laboratory (VCL). Basically, the students were able to design and
simulate classical proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers and fuzzy logic controller (FLC). Besides, any
other type of compensator with a transfer function or a state space model can be also combined with the physical
system model for simulation and analysis. A laboratory type scope with two input channels was embedded in VCL
in order to visually see and analyze the simulation results in the time domain. Responses from the students taking
ACS course were also given to evaluate the proposed educational software from students’ point of view. ß 2015
Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 24:122–130, 2016; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/
journal/cae; DOI 10.1002/cae.21678

Keywords: virtual control lab; system simulation; control engineering education; interactive educational tool

INTRODUCTION
AUTOMATIC control systems are the field used in a wide range
of real-life industrial and commercial applications [1]. Thus,
designing automatic control systems is an important task in control
systems engineering [2]. Control system design process starts with
modelling the physical system to be controlled. Therefore every
control book and control system course includes the topic usually
called modeling of physical systems [3,4]. Students are supposed
to learn modelling, simulation, and time domain analysis of
systems to get to know their dynamic behaviors so that a proper
controller type can be selected to be designed.
Experience has shown that the active inclusion of students in
education process is the most effective way of teaching. Various
methods such as weekly assignments, term projects, term works,
and lab experiments, have been applied to include students in
the process. Beside these classical approaches, computer-based
Correspondence to M. S. Ayas (msayas@ktu.edu.tr).
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
learning methods have been developed and applied during last
decades. Some of these computer-based learning methods use
the commercially available software as listed in Educational
Computer-Aided Software Section, while some others use the
course-based computer software, locally developed where needed.
Although commercially available software packages are advanced
tools to handle most of the requirements of courses, they are
expensive and additional toolboxes are required for them to get
full functionality. On the other hand, these software packages give
a window to users to enter data and get the results. Students do not
know what is going on or what is done behind the screen, even
though they do not care about the design equations and they just
learn how to use these programs and memorize their commands
and scripts. Use of commercial software has put the learning of
the actual topic backward and brought the importance of the
software forward. In fact, these commercial software packages
have become more important than actual engineering courses
such that courses on teaching how to use them are included in
undergraduate curricula at some universities. It is a fact that the
tools to accompany the courses have preceded the main purpose
and outcomes. Therefore, the course instructors seek more simple
software tools that accompany their courses, not the ones that

122
 A VIRTUAL LABORATORY FOR SYSTEM SIMULATION AND CONTROL
replace the main course. To solve this problem, course-based
educational software tools whose details are given in Educational
Computer-Aided Software Section have been developed [5–13].
The proposed virtual control laboratory (VCL) was devel-
oped as a course-based educational tool to accompany the
automatic control systems course in Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering, Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey.
The software was designed by the inclusion of the students in the
first place of learning process so that the outcomes of the control
course were achieved, not the outcomes of the software.
The benefits of the proposed computer-aided interactive
software for automatic control systems were as follows:

It forces students to model design and analyze physical
systems and controllers.

It is free of charge and can be easily installed on any
computer with MS Windows operating system.

Because of the fact that it is fully visual, students do not need
to know any instructions in order to be able to use it. The main
window of the software guides users and shows what to do.

Multiple projects can be created and studied at the same time.

Students are able to generate a report right inside the
software with the data generated by simulating their designs.
VCL has been used by students for simulation and control
system design under the course curriculum. An evaluation analysis
is also performed over student responses. According to the
responses from the students, it is clear to say that the implemented
approach improved students’ motivation and actual performance
and their use of active learning strategies.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Educational
Computer-Aided Software Section presents a brief review about
educational computer-aided software and professionally devel-
oped software packages. In General Structure of the Virtual
Control Lab Section, general structure of the developed VCL is
introduced. User Interface Section introduces user interfaces of the
developed VCL. The details of evaluation of the VCL are given in
Evaluation of VCL Section. Finally, the conclusions are drawn.
EDUCATIONAL COMPUTER-AIDED SOFTWARE
Although many textbooks are available on automatic control
systems theory, researchers are studying the development of new
tools in order to complement traditional teaching and support
educational process in the last decades [5]. An interactive Java-
based object-oriented tool for control engineering teaching [6]
was developed to support the theoretical parts of basic control
engineering courses by simulations and providing an alternative
approach to teaching control system topics. In order to prove the
sustainability of the software, the authors provide a link to
access the software. However, the given access link was not
active. Moreover, since the developed software is web-based,
internet connection is required. Besides these technical issues,
the software provides only conventional PID controller and state
feedback controller. Another Java-based object-oriented tool
was developed in Ref. [7] to give the remote access opportunity
of feedback control laboratory experiments and enable students
to realize experiments whenever and wherever they want until
reaching a sufficient level. Since the software was developed for
remote access to the laboratory experiments, students are not
flexible to design and simulate their own control systems. In
order to observe pole-zero effects in Bode, Nyquist, and Nichols
123
diagram and step response, a Java-based object-oriented tool
was developed [8] for linear systems and feedback control
systems. The software does not contain the basics of control
systems. In addition, it does not provide the opportunity of
simulating a feedback system with a designed controller. A real-
time computer- controlled simulator for small-sized DC motor
speed control was given in Ref. [5]. Because of the fact that the
software was developed for a specific system, the response of a
defined transfer function or state equations could not be
observed by using the software. A web-based three-tank system
which was a nonlinear MIMO system was provided in Ref. [9]
using a Java platform for control laboratory. The authors was
developed a specific software for three-tank system. A real-time
experiment and simulation environment for a remote robot arm
control was also studied in Ref. [10].
The mentioned studies [6–10] have some shortcomings. The
most important one is that the contents are not comprehensive for
control engineering teaching since they locally developed where
needed [7–10]. Since most of them are web-based applications, an
internet connection which limits the accessibility is required.
Moreover, the sustainability of web-based software is not too
much as in Refs. [6,7,10]. A software should have a setup file in
order to reach more students and be sustainable. The visuality and
easy of use which are motivating specifications was not paid
attention except [5].
Beside control systems, computer-based tools have been
developed for other areas of engineering, as well. Canesin [11]
designed a Java-based object-oriented simulator to be used for one
and three phase ideal rectifier simulation in power electronic
courses. Another educational tool which can be used in teaching
electricity and electronics was developed in [12]. The virtual
laboratory for solar PV systems was also developed and applied in
undergraduate curricula as given in Ref. [13].
Computer-based virtual toolboxes are developed by re-
searchers at universities; however, professionally developed
software packages like MATLAB [14], VISSIM [15], MA-
PLE [16], LABVIEW [17], MATHEMATICA [18], and other
similar ones are also commercially available. There are other
software packages like OCTAVE and SCILAB which are both
commercial and free of charge and can be used to design and
simulate systems. Although, these hardware supported computer
software have been developed and provide many tools for fast and
secure numeric computation and simulation, during the last
decade, unfortunately, they have some shortcomings which make
them inconvenient for automatic control system area. Some of
these shortcomings can be listed as:

They minimize the contribution of students in the design and
analysis of control systems by offering predefined solutions
to problems. They limit the works to be done by students and
therefore limit the learning process.

Users have to have a good command of instructions in order
to be able to use these programs without time consuming
learning process.

Users are not able to adapt their designs easily using
universally accepted standard forms of equation sets due to
hard data structures.
The proposed VCL, whose benefits are given in introduction
part, does not have such mentioned shortcomings that both
educational computer-aided software developed by researchers
and professionally developed software packages.
124 AYAS AND ALTAS

GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE VIRTUAL CONTROL
LAB
VCL was developed in Embarcadero RAD Studio’s Cþþ and can
be run on any computer which has at least Windows XP operating
system. It was planned to keep students at every stage of modeling,
designing, and analyzing control systems by letting them to model
and develop alternative designs in terms of state-space modeling
and then testing their designs in the virtual lab proposed here. The
virtual control lab introduced here could help students in modeling
and designing linear control systems. The lab provided the design
opportunity of proportional (P), integral (I), derivative (D)
controllers and the combinations of them in the group of two or
three. In addition to the classical PID controllers, an interface for

Figure 1 Flowchart of the VCL.

Figure 2 Input window of VCL.

 A VIRTUAL LABORATORY FOR SYSTEM SIMULATION AND CONTROL 125

designing and using fuzzy logic controller was also included.

Besides, any other type of compensator with a transfer function or
a state space model can also be combined with the physical system
model for simulation and analysis. The students were able to
embed any type of controllers to the sate-space model of physical
systems and simulate them as a whole system. A visual display
window was also included for analyzing and making necessary
parameter changes. A performance analysis tool was also
developed and included in order to compare the performances
of the designed controllers for better utilization. Flowchart of VCL
is shown in Figure 1 where VCL has basically four blocks called
creating project, controller design, system simulation, and results.
Every block had its subsections. For example, the results block had
the subsections called dynamic behavior analysis, performance
analysis, and stability analysis with the display choices as
graphical or numerical display.
VCL supports the listed topics below which are the essentials
of the control system theory.
Figure 4 Entry of the data in state-space format.

System representation using transfer function and state-
space formats
window, which can be used as a blackboard calculator. After the

Time domain analysis
main window, a new project is initiated in the subwindow given in

Dynamic behavior analysis
Figure 3 by selecting “new” in the main window.

Stability analysis

PID controller design analysis

Fuzzy logic controller design analysis Open Loop Interface

Lead/lag controller design analysis
Students use the open loop simulation to test the mathematical

Performance analysis
models obtained for their systems to be controlled. In parallel to
USER INTERFACE the course syllabus, they simulate the mathematical models of the
systems to see the responses for the test signals: step, ramp, and
The input window shown in Figure 2 appears when VCL is impulse. By testing the mathematical models, students analyze the
executed. Users can use either the top menu bar or command free and forced responses of the physical systems for stability.
buttons on the main body to start a new project or open an existing With the “open loop” part of the “uncontrolled system” interface,
one. There is a command section at the bottom of the input students are forced to model the physical systems before using

Figure 3 Input window for new project. Figure 5 Data input interfaces for fuzzy logic controller.
126 AYAS AND ALTAS
VCL. They develop mathematical models in lectures or assign-
ments to learn the concept described by the course syllabus and use
VCL just to test and validate what they have learned. Students may
test the mathematical models developed using commercially
available expensive software if their university has the license. In
fact, getting information and learning how to use this commercial
software are necessary for making professional designs after
graduation. Therefore, the aim of VCL has never been to compete
and put them aside. They ought to be learned for professional
engineering designers after graduation. Although universities may
have the license to have their students and researchers use them,
students cannot install them on their computers to access and use
them at home. On the other hand, VCL can be used as accompany
to the control course as a free software showing that expensive
software does not have to be used for just system simulation and
time domain analysis.
Figure 6 A: Membership functions. B: Rule table.
After entering the new project name, magnitude of the input
signal and number of state variables, the next subwindows appear
to enter the system data in either state-space format or transfer
function format, as shown in Figure 4. The mathematical model of
the physical system must be obtained and written in a proper
format before entering the input fields given in Figure 4.
Controller Interface
The controller interface window includes both classical PID and
fuzzy logic controllers. Lead/lag and other compensators with
defined transfer functions can be combined with the plant’s
transfer function as cascade connection and simulated using the
“closed loop” section of the “uncontrolled system” interface.
Students design controllers using methods such as pole-
placement, state feedback, optimal control theory, root-locus,
 A VIRTUAL LABORATORY FOR SYSTEM SIMULATION AND CONTROL
Nyquist, Bode, Nichols charts, and others they learn in the
classroom during lectures. After obtaining the controller
parameters from the design process they perform, students enter
them into VCL through the controller interface, which provides
data input boxes for PID controller parameters, Kp, Ki, Kd, and
fuzzy logic controller parameters. The interface window for fuzzy
logic controller is shown in Figure 5.
In addition to the classical PID controllers, a fuzzy logic
controller interface screen is also included in VCL to be used as
accompany to fuzzy logic course in Computer Engineering
Department at KTU. In this window, membership numbers and
types for error and change of error are selected. Triangular,
Gaussian, trapezoid, and sigmoid are the types of the membership
functions provided by the interface. Although the same type of
membership function is selectable for both error and change of
error, users are able to change the type of membership function by
clicking the right button of mouse when it is over the membership
function. An example of this condition is given in Figure 6a, in
which Gaussian membership function is selected in the middle of
the membership functions. As can be seen in Figure 6a, the
membership functions are placed symmetrically. However, users
can change the locations of membership functions. Figure 6b
shows the rule table which is assigned automatically by default
settings. However, users can change them by moving the mouse
over the rules and clicking the right button. Design process of
fuzzy logic controller including the establishment of the rule table
was given in Ref. [19].
The crisp output of the fuzzy logic controller is obtained by
the center of area defuzzification method which can handle both
symmetrical and non-symmetrical fuzzy numbers [20].
Simulation Interface
Both controlled and uncontrolled system simulation is carried out in
“system simulation block”. System simulation can be realized in
three different modes: time unlimited, time limited, and step-by-step.
In the time unlimited mode, system simulation continues until users
click stop button. In the second mode, users define the simulation
time at which the iteration ends. The third mode enables users to
see results step by step at each iteration. Step size is defined by users.
The value of step size should be chosen considering the fact that
increasing step size causes data loss and decreasing step size slows
Figure 7
127
down the simulation speed. When selecting the step size, the
sampling theorem [21] should be considered.
Runge Kutta algorithm which is a common ordinary
differential equation solving method [22] is used in “system
simulation block” in order to solve differential equations. The
results of this block is sent to “results block” as seen in Figure 1.
Before using VCL and simulating the system equations, students
should review the Runge-Kutta or other numerical solution
methods of linear time-invariant ordinary differential equations
from numerical analysis courses. This is a requirement for the
students for not using the VCL blindly.
Results and Simulation Interface
“Results block” processes the data received from “system
simulation block” and shows them in the designed windows. It
is also possible for students to export the results and plot in another
software like MS Excel. The time response, dynamic behaviors,
stability, and performance measures of the system are visually
shown in the output block in separate windows. Users can also see
the same results as numeric values by clicking the desired point on
the plot immediately. Figure 7 shows the designed oscilloscope
which has the ability to show the selected parameters of the studied
projects. Students have the opportunity of plotting time response
of the system variables controlled by different controllers as well
as plotting different parameters like “output” and “error” of the
same system. The oscilloscope supports up to 4 graphics which
means the students can compare the effect of four different
controllers over a system. Settling time and overshoot which are
some of the system dynamics are shown in Figure 8. Settling time,
rise time, and maximum overshoot are automatically calculated
and plotted in the system analysis window. Students compare these
results with the results they calculated during lectures, tutorials or
project calculations.
Another interface window is provided in VCL for perfor-
mance analysis as shown in Figure 9. The performance analysis
methods used by VCL are integral error (IE), integral absolute error
(IAE), integral of squared error (ISE), integral of time multiplied by
absolute error (ITAE), integral of time multiplied by squared error
(ITSE), and integral of squared time multiplied by squared error
(ISTE). This window has a great importance while making decision
of which controller to be used in order to control the modeled
The oscilloscope.
128 AYAS AND ALTAS
Figure 8 Time domain analysis window.
system. This section of VCL is used by students to develop and get
more insights into the optimal control part of the course syllabi.
All the obtained results are directly printable in order to
prepare reports easily.
EVALUATION OF VCL
VCL was used to accompany automatic control systems course in
Karadeniz Technical University. 135 students were registered to
the course, which is one of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
undergraduate program courses taught on the third year.
Figure 9 Performance analysis window.
Figure 10 Number of the students marking the stated option versus question numbers in 2013.
Evaluation of VCL was based on the contributions made
to the students. A questionnaire consisting of 10 questions was
prepared in order to analyze the usability and functionality of
VCL. The students were asked to give a degree of agreement from
0 to 5 to the following sentences.
1. VCL has a user-friendly interface which makes it easy-to-
use.
2. VCL is compatible with the course contents.
3. VCL assists in realizing the system simulation using
transfer function or state equations.
4. VCL assists in studying the effect of PID controller
parameters on a given system.
5. VCL improves the knowledge on open-loop and closed-
loop control systems.
6. VCL helps in analyzing the dynamic behavior of a given
system.
7. VCL is a helpful tool to study the performance measure
methods.
8. VCL could enable testing and improving the knowledge
learned in the course.
9. VCL has shown that use of commercial software packages
is not obligatory in the control engineering area.
10. VCL encourages students to develop their own software
when running into a problem.
116 and 134 students participated in the evaluation process in
2013 and 2014, respectively. Figures 10–12 show the results of the
questionnaire. The number of the students who marked the stated
option according to question numbers in 2013 are seen in
Figure 10. Figure 11 demonstrates the number of the students for
 A VIRTUAL LABORATORY FOR SYSTEM SIMULATION AND CONTROL
Figure 11 Number of the students marking the stated option versus question numbers in 2014.
Figure 12 Average mark of the questions in 2013 and 2014.
2014. Average mark of the questions for 2013 and 2014 is pointed
out in Figure 12. As can be seen from the resultant figures of the
questionnaire VCL had general acceptance among the students.
CONCLUSIONS
The proposed virtual control laboratory (VCL) was developed as
a course-based educational tool to accompany the automatic
control systems course in Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering at Karadeniz Technical University,
Turkey. The software was designed by the inclusion of the
students in the first place of learning process so that the
outcomes of the control course was obtained, not the outcomes
of the software. In order to increase and fasten the learning
process, an educational computer-aided interactive software was
developed. Benefits of the developed and proposed computer-
aided interactive software for automatic control systems can be
listed as follows:

It forces students to model, make designs, and analyze the
physical systems and controllers.

It is free of charge and can be installed easily onto any
computer with MS Windows operating system. (At least
Windows XP is required)
129

Because of the fact that it is fully visual, students do not need
to know any instructions in order to be able to use the
software.

Multiple projects can be created and studied at the same time.

It is possible to create a hardcopy of the project which
includes the project descriptions.

Students are able to generate a report right inside the software
with the data they generate by simulating their designs.
Student opinions showed satisfactory results with the
average 4 out of 5. Although the students thought that VCL
was helpful in learning the automatic control systems and fuzzy
logic controllers, there were some additional issues to develop the
software. For example, VCL can be expanded to include
frequency domain analysis, include the selection of more than
one numerical solution method, let the students embed their
software codes in VCL for validating their codes, and add
conversion algorithms to convert different types of model
equations from one form into another.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Mustafa SS inasi Ayas was born in Trabzon,
Turkey. He graduated from Hacettepe University
and received his BScE in Electrical Engineering
from Karadeniz Technical University (KTU),
Turkey, in 2009 and 2012, respectively. He is
still a PhD student at KTU. He is currently a full
time Research Assistant in Electrical and
Electronics Engineering Department at KTU.
He works on automatic control systems, robotics
and optimal estimation.
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[22] S. C. Chapra and R. P. Canale, Numerical methods for engineers,
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.
Ismail H. Altas (M’1993, SM’2007) was born in
Ispir, Turkey. Received his BScE in Electrical
Engineering from Yildiz University, and MScE
from Karadeniz Technical University (KTU),
Turkey, in 1985 and 1988, respectively. He
obtained his PhD degree from the University
of New Brunswick, Canada, in 1993.
He is currently a full time Professor in
Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department
at KTU. He was awarded as the best outstanding
faculty member in engineering for the year 1997 at KTU. He is a Senior
Member of IEEE Power Engineering, Industrial Electronics, and Man Machine
and Cybernetics Societies. He has been a member of the Chamber of Electrical
Engineers in Turkey. He works on intelligent control of power systems and
utilization of renewable energy.