Web-Based Control Education in Matlab

The aim of this chapter is to point out how Matlab can be exploited in Internet-based control education. As it is known, Matlab is the mathematical software package that was originally developed for computations with matrices. Later, its functionality was completed with Simulink and a number of various toolboxes. Simulink was designed for simulation of dynamical systems. Its graphical interface enables easy manipulation with blocks that form basic dynamical components of a system. In spite of a great number of these predefined blocks the interested user is given by a possibility to create his/her own elements or to group blocks together. Matlab toolboxes are developed for many areas, e.g. symbolic computation, statistics, finances, identification, virtual reality, control, etc. Control education has to cover many topics that lead to the robust implementation of controllers in practice. Starting from system identification, continuing to analysis, controller design and verification via simulation, and ending with implementation on real plants. All these steps can be realized using Matlab, too.