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A Hands-On PID Control Education Program Combining LEGO-based Hardware and Scilab-based Simulation
| International Journal of Applied Information Systems |
| Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA |
| Volume 13 - Number 3 |
| Year of Publication: 2026 |
| Authors: Kodai Kitagawa, Fuhui Guo, Keita Imamura |
10.5120/ijais78cd4e30f9a3
|
Kodai Kitagawa, Fuhui Guo, Keita Imamura . A Hands-On PID Control Education Program Combining LEGO-based Hardware and Scilab-based Simulation. International Journal of Applied Information Systems. 13, 3 ( Aug 2026), 55-59. DOI=10.5120/ijais78cd4e30f9a3
Abstract
Proportional integral derivative (PID) control is a fundamental topic in control engineering; however, students often have difficulty understanding the relationship between controller gains and system behavior through mathematical lectures or simulations alone. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop a hands-on education program that enables students to understand feedback control behavior and acquire practical PID gain-tuning skills by directly comparing the responses of an actual motor-angle control system with those obtained from computer simulation. This study proposes a hands-on education program for introductory feedback control education that integrates both physical experiments using LEGO EV3 hardware and computer simulation using Scilab/Xcos. The developed program focuses on PID control of motor angle and is designed to help students acquire both conceptual understanding of feedback control and practical PID gain-tuning skills. Through experiments involving P, PI, PD, and PID control, students investigate the effects of gain parameters on transient response characteristics and compare the differences between real hardware behavior and simulation results. The proposed education program was implemented for 34 undergraduate mechanical engineering students. To evaluate its educational effectiveness, a self-assessment questionnaire consisting of five learning-outcome-based items was administered after the experiment. The results showed that more than half of the students reported being able to explain PID control behavior and tune PID gains appropriately after completing the program. In addition, the combined use of LEGO-based experiments and Scilab-based simulation was found to support students’ understanding of both theoretical and practical aspects of feedback control. These results suggest that the proposed education program is effective in developing foundational PID control knowledge and gain-tuning skills for introductory control engineering education.
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