Real Time DC Water Tank Level Control using Arduino Mega 2560

Control engineering is an interdisciplinary field requiring knowledges on math and physics, circuits, sensors, actuator, and microcontrollers (for digital control implementation). It also provides users experiences in testing, simulation and real-time implementation. This paper presents a real-time level control of a laboratory water tank plant demonstrating the essence of control engineering. The objective is to design and apply a PID controller to maintain the water level in a cylinder tank by using Arduino microcontrollers. After plant modelling and device testing, controllers are designed, and the closed-loop system is simulated. Refined controllers are then implemented through Arduino Mega 2560. By comparing the simulation and experimental closed-loop system performances, the difference caused by plant-model mismatch is discussed. The importance of integrating math, physics, and circuits with Arduino programming in embedded control systems is highlighted.