Abstract

Direct current (DC) motors have currently a wide usage in industrial applications. This resulted in the necessity of making the speed controls of DC motors in a sensitive manner. Conventional controllers have poorer performances due to the non-linear features of DC motors like saturation and friction. Fuzzy logic controllers (FLC) are widely used in controlling poorly-defined, nonlinear and imprecise systems. FLC courses are being given in many universities at the graduate and/or postgraduate levels due to FLC achievements in these areas. The education of a FLC driver in a lab environment is a time-consuming and expensive task. In this study, a virtual lab is prepared for the FLC of a permanent magnet direct current (PMDC) motor, which is a part of the electrical machines course. It is a software having a flexible structure and a graphical user interface (GUI). The virtual lab allows as a software tool monitoring the system’s reaction in different operation conditions through graphs by changing the PMDC motor and controller parameters.

Key words: Fuzzy logic, DC motor, virtual laboratory, educational tool, software tool.