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A man-machine interaction experiment in the real-time continuous control sense is presented. The computer program is given and described, together with some representative results with regard to plant order, display effects and training effects. In particular, the importance of the selection of the displayed variable is emphasized. The experiment has been helpful in the appreciation of the effects of display gain selection and the inclusion of the derivative terms in the displayed variable, as well as demonstrating the importances of plant order and operator training, by allowing time response shape and criterion value comparisons. The nature of the conclusions reached can be generalized to automatic control, helping students of control systems.

In teaching relatively abstract concepts, it is well known that analogical phenomena in more familiar domains are quite helpful in illustrating these concepts to make them more easily understandable. In this paper, the use of mechanical analogs of some fundamental phenomena in automatic control systems which we have found helpful in teaching automatic control to mechanical engineering students is described. INTRODUCTIONIn mechanical engineering education, most of the subjects are such that a student can visualize relatively easily what is happening in the process that is being studied. However, when students encounter the automatic control subjects, the related phenomena seem quite abstract compared to most of those they have encountered previously. This situation is usually daunting, and it may lead to attempts to handle it by trying to memorize some rules instead of trying to really understand them. At this point, mechanical analogs of some phenomena in control systems can be helpful, since the mechanical world is a familiar one to all, especially to the mechanical engineering students. By transforming what goes on in the 'signal' domain into the mechanical domain which makes use of easy to visualize quantities like 'force', 'position', 'velocity', etc., the nature of the phenomenon under study is comprehended more easily. This encourages the student to learn more and therefore improve. Also, such understanding breaks the 'mathematics barrier' which usually stands between the student and the reality as an abstract wall if mathematical operations are not projected onto the plane of physical reality. This paper presents some mechanical analogs related to automatic control systems, which we have found useful in the automatic control courses designed for mechanical engineering students. We start from the block diagrams of some simple closed loop structures, with transfer functions representing the various components in the control loop, and find a simple and passive mechanical system consisting of masses, springs and dashpots that is an analog of the control system under consideration, i.e. one that satisfies the same differential equation that the control system does. Since the starting point is the block diagram (or, equivalently the mathematical model), the analogy will be valid for control

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