From Control Theory to Practice: Addressing Misconceptions in Control Design

Controls courses provide a strong foundation in system dynamics, stability, and controller design. However, when control theory is applied to real engineering problems, additional challenges quickly emerge, including uncertain plant models, hardware constraints, integration with other system components, verification, and deployment.

These realities can challenge common assumptions held by students and early-career engineers. For example, they may assume that the best controller is simply the one with the highest performance, or that most engineering effort is spent on control design alone. In practice, engineers must balance performance with implementation constraints and often spend significant time on modeling, simulation, integration, and verification.

In this hands-on workshop, participants will work through a realistic control design scenario in Simulink®, moving from requirements to plant modeling, controller design, verification, and deployment considerations. Along the way, they will confront common misconceptions and see how model-based design workflows help bridge the gap between classroom intuition and engineering practice.

Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of what controls engineering looks like in industry and practical experience using MATLAB® and Simulink®. The workshop is designed for students preparing for engineering roles, graduate researchers interested in applied workflows, and faculty looking to bring industry context into controls coursework.