A first course in feedback, dynamics and control: findings from an online pilot survey for the IFAC community

Undergraduate students in many engineering programs around the world take only one control course. The IFAC Educational Committee has developed and piloted to a limited audience a comprehensive survey for the topics to be included in such course. This issue is relevant to both academia and industry. The paper discusses the initial findings related to the design of the survey as well as the responses of the participants. The findings will be used to refine the survey and distribute it in the near future to the global control community

Technical committee on control education

Presents information of the CS society Presents information of the CS society Technical Committee on Control Education

A survey of international views on a first course in systems and control for engineering undergraduates

This paper summarises the results of an international survey of academics and industrialists on what should be prioritised in the first, and often only, control course taken by engineering undergraduates. The results are made up both of quantitative data whereby respondents selected from a number of options, and also of qualitative data where respondents entered free comments. Reflections on the results and summaries of common trends are given to help readers consider how the curriculum in their own institutions might be updated and modified to meet modern requirements. At the time of writing the survey had around 500 respondents covering a good spread of nationalities, employment status and engineering disciplines

On an IFAC online pilot survey for a first course on control

The paper introduces aims and objectives of the IFAC survey for a first course on control and discusses some its basic features

Teaching control during the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper aims to analyze some different solutions that were adopted in control education activities during the pandemic. The authors of this paper are educators in the control education field from different countries on all the continents, who have developed a questionnaire with the idea of collecting data about the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the control education activities. The main objective is to study the diverse alternatives that were used worldwide to perform the online educational activities during that period, such as methodologies, tools, learning management systems (LMS), theoretical exercises, laboratory experiments, types of exams, simulators, software for online lecturing, etc. As a result, comparisons between pre-and during-pandemic educational resources and methods are performed, where useful ideas and discussions are given for the control education community.https://www.journals.elsevier.com/ifac-papersonlineElectrical, Electronic and Computer Engineerin

Rational steering of insulin binding specificity by intra-chain chemical crosslinking

Insulin is a key hormone of human metabolism with major therapeutic importance for both types of diabetes. New insulin analogues with more physiological profiles and better glycemic control are needed, especially analogues that preferentially bind to the metabolic B-isoform of insulin receptor (IR-B). Here, we aimed to stabilize and modulate the receptor-compatible conformation of insulin by covalent intra-chain crosslinking within its B22-B30 segment, using the Cu I -catalyzed Huisgen 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction of azides and alkynes. This approach resulted in 14 new, systematically crosslinked insulin analogues whose structures and functions were extensively characterized and correlated. One of the analogues, containing a B26-B29 triazole bridge, was highly active in binding to both IR isoforms, with a significant preference for IR-B. Our results demonstrate the potential of chemistry-driven modulation of insulin function, also shedding new light on the functional importance of hormones B-chain C-terminus for its IR-B specificity

A first course in feedback, dynamics and control : findings from 2019 online survey of the international control community

This paper summarizes the results from a large-scale survey on the content and teaching philosophy of the first, and in many cases the only, control course taken by undergraduate students in engineering and applied sciences around the world. The IFAC Technical Committee on Education developed and administered the survey in 2019. At the time of writing of this manuscript 201 control professionals have responded to the survey. The majority view is that the first course in control should focus on concepts and avoid excessive mathematical proofs. The responders ranked the depth of coverage of 63 topics commonly found in introductory control texts. A model curriculum for a first control course is suggested based on the ranking results

Open access resources to support the first course in feedback, dynamics and control

The Technical Committees for Control Education of IFAC and IEEE have started a collaborative initiative to collect, curate, and disseminate high quality freely available resources that support instruction of the first control course for undergraduate students in engineering and applied sciences programs. An initial survey with limited distribution provided 64 resources that cover all topics in a typical introductory control curriculum. This paper gives an initial glimpse of the resources collected thus far. It also suggests possible ways for categorization and dissemination

Open access resources to support learning of control engineering

In recent years the IFAC technical committee has been looking closely at what constitutes an ideal first course in control. Having completed stage 1 of this study, the community is now discussing how to best collate and share the numerous open access resources to support such a course, or indeed more advanced control courses, which staff and students can utilise. A call has gone out to the community to share their knowledge of available resources and this paper gives a preliminary view on the resources that have been proposed so far and ideas on how this information will be shared with the community

Open access resources to support learning of control engineering

In recent years the IFAC technical committee has been looking closely at what constitutes an ideal first course in control [16]. Having completed stage 1 of this study, the community is now discussing how to best collate and share the numerous open access resources to support such a course, or indeed more advanced control courses, which staff and students can utilise. A call has gone out to the community to share their knowledge of available resources and this paper gives a preliminary view on the resources that have been proposed so far and ideas on how this information will be shared with the community