Feedback control, PID, cascade control, feedforward control, state machines and sequential control, stability, and tuning methods — worked with a real Ziegler-Nichols tuning and controller-output calculation.
Sensors measure, actuators act, but nothing decides what a mechatronic machine should actually do until a control system closes the loop between the two. This module covers that decision-making layer at both levels a working mechatronics engineer needs: continuous feedback control — PID, cascade, and feedforward — that keeps a single axis or variable tracking a target, and discrete sequential control — state machines and sequencing logic — that coordinates the whole machine through an ordered process.
A worked example anchors the module in real numbers: a Ziegler-Nichols tuning calculation deriving PID gains from a measured ultimate gain and period, followed by a controller-output calculation showing exactly how those gains combine with a real error signal into the command sent to a drive on a single control cycle.