2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Control Systems is an academic discipline consistently popular among Engineering students, which has limited popularity among Engineering Technology students. This is the case because of the history of Engineering Technology as a field. For example, the easiest way for most students to study control systems is through majoring in Robotics. Robotics major itself is not new in Engineering but still new in Engineering Technology. It has been studied that Engineering Technology students can possess competitive knowledge and skills in foundational STEM disciplines (including Math). The recent advances in unmanned vehicle technology, particularly in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) spectrum, and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) trends in academia and industry create a demand for more specialists in the field. To facilitate this, both Engineering and Engineering Technology students should be actively involved in Robotics-related classes, such as control systems.

The authors designed and analyzed the behavior of a control system of a semi-autonomous trailer. Different positions of the vehicle-trailer connection sensor were taken as a criterion for analysis. The authors developed a step-by-step guide for first-year engineering technology students to help them design and analyze similar control systems of their own. This paper discusses the manual and the educational assumptions of the authors.

The results of the presented research have a potential for use among both Engineering Technology students and faculty. One goal is to popularize the discipline of control systems among Engineering Technology students by providing an “easy” approach to a basic control systems problem. Another goal is to provide Engineering Technology faculty with an example of how basic control systems problem can be presented to Engineering Technology students. Additionally, this paper can help Engineering Technology faculty to design similar guides for other control system problems.