Sistema de controle de temperatura educacional compacto, portátil e de baixo custo

Abstract

Courses on feedback control of dynamic systems are based on abstract concepts and mathematical tools that are not always well understood and sufficiently assimilated by students until the moment they become necessary to effectively solve problems. Despite the abundant practical examples of feedback control available all around, taking one of them to the classroom to serve as an on-the-spot example, and thus motivating students and facilitating teaching, study ing and understanding of the complex theories and techniques that comprise the field of feedback control, still is a challenging task to accomplish. This paper proposes yet another teaching resource to help with the teaching/learning process of such courses: a safe, compact, portable and low-cost Temperature Control System (TCS), which has been developed to be an on-the-spot, ancillary means of teaching/learning. The core of the TCS is an Arduino board. The heating element consists of a pair of identical transistors attached to a heatsink. A thermistor is attached to the heatsink as well. The Arduino board computes both the temperature of the heatsink and the control action. The TCS allows demonstrations and experiments to be performed in order to bring theory and practice closer together. Several feedback control theories and techniques can be illustrated, compared and tested in practice.