The Digital Control Systems board was designed as part of a commission from RMIT university for a new course: 'Troubleshoot Digital Control Systems'

The Digital Control Systems board contains a heating element which has it's heat measured by an RTD. The current through the RTD is then measured by an instrument amplifier. The signal then passes though a signal conditioning circuit to translate the 0-5V output of the instrument amplifier to a 4-20mA current source. This current source is then translated back to a 0.66V-3.3V range for the microcontroller to read. The microcontroller than controls fans which blow on the heating element to cool it down, thus closing the control loop.

The board also contains a switchboard hidden from students that can inject faults such as short circuits and open circuits in the control loop. The main objective of the board is for students to understand its operation and test their fault finding skills.

The Digital Control Systems was a very tight deadline project which went from concept to final project in about 4 weeks, delivering 31 boards to the University.