Abstract
This paper addresses the concept of Industry 4.0 from the perspective of the molds industry, a key industry in today's industrial panorama. With its constant modernization, several technologies have been introduced, in particular regarding machining equipment. With each brand and model requiring different (proprietary) interfaces and communication protocols, this technological diversity renders the automatic interconnection with production management software extremely challenging. In this paper a methodology to build monitoring solutions for machining devices is defined, based on the main equipment and operations used by molds industry companies. For a standardized approach, OPC UA is used for high-level communication between the various systems. As a key result of this paper, and given the variety of monitoring systems and communication protocols, the developed approach combines various different machine interfaces on a single system, in order to cover a relevant subset of machining equipment currently in use by the molds industry. This kind of all-in-one approach will give production managers access to the information needed for a continuous monitoring and improvement of the entire production process. (C) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Abstract
Although advances have been made in reducing the time needed for manhole inspection, the procedure is still mostly done manually, with workers having to enter and visually assess the areas being inspected. There is also a growing need to have these structures inspected regularly, in order to prevent casualties and services interruption, as well as the higher cost of rebuilding instead of repairing these structures, which is possible only if pathologies are identified at early stages. This situation renders the task a good target for automation. This paper reviews a set of existing manhole, tunnel and duct inspection systems to ascertain the main features required for the task, as well as the technologies currently used. Most of the present-day solutions are rather expensive and cumbersome, requiring the deployment of relatively heavy equipment and specialized personnel to operate them. With the recent development of laser range sensors and depth (RGBD) cameras with small form factors and weights, the development of solutions with higher portability and lower cost become feasible. Such a solution could improve considerably the rate at which manholes are inspected, and the technology could be used to generate textured models to be analyzed and reported by a remotely located specialist, both online and offline. The work presented here lays the ground for the development of such a system in our research group who has been working on low-cost systems for the generation of 3D textured models for automated inspection. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Abstract
The paper develops and investigates a novel set of constrained-output robust controllers with selectable response smoothing degree designed for an integrator-plus-dead-time (IPDT) plant model. The input-output response of the IPDT system is internally approximated by several time-delayed, possibly higher-order plant models of increasing complexity. Since they all contain a single integrator, the presented approach can be considered as a generalization of active disturbance rejection control (ADRC). Due to the input/output model used, the controller commissioning can be based on a simplified process modeling, similar to the one proposed by Ziegler and Nichols. This allows it to be compared with several alternative controllers commonly used in practice. Its main advantage is simplicity, since it uses only two identified process parameters, even when dealing with more complex systems with distributed parameters. The proposed set of controllers with increasing complexity includes the stabilizing proportional (P), proportional-derivative (PD), or proportional-derivative-acceleration (PDA) controllers. These controllers can be complemented by extended state observers (ESO) for the reconstruction of all required state variables and non-measurable input disturbances, which also cover imperfections of a simplified plant modeling. A holistic performance evaluation on a laboratory heat transfer plant shows interesting results from the point of view of the optimal least sensitive solution with smooth input and output.

Abstract
Two major control design objectives are set-point tracking and disturbance rejection. How to design a control system to achieve the best possible performance for both objectives is a classical research issue. For most systems these design objectives are conflicting meaning that a single controller cannot cope in providing overall good performance. In this paper, a dual mode control system is reported using a feedforward controller to achieve optimum set-point tracking and PID control to deal with disturbance rejection. A particle swarm optimization algorithm is deployed to design the feedforward controller and the magnitude optimum multiple integration method applied to design the PI/PID controllers. The proposed control system is tested on a custom-made laboratory control temperature kit based on Arduino system. Preliminary results are presented showing the dual-mode control potential merits. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

Abstract
Flipped Classroom approach was implemented in an Automation course with around 100 students. Videos focused on GRAFCET topics were given to students prior to class and problem-based challenges were solved in class by the students in a collaborative way. The teacher’s role was to guide students in their learning process. The goal was to identify students’ behavior regarding this learning approach, and the videos in particular, by using questionnaires. Result analysis shows a positive feedback from students motivating teachers to enlarge this learning approach to other courses. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

Abstract
Practice is of the essence in Engineering courses. A relevant question in control engineering education is: How to close the gap between theory and practice? Once subjects are introduced in theoretical classes, students want to know about its practical use. Thus, it is important to introduce theoretical control concepts with practical experiments, enabling students to easily test and validate the theory. An Arduino based temperature control laboratory (TCLab) is deployed in this study as a portable kit providing students with a simple and effective means to test some feedback control techniques. Teaching/learning experiments are proposed involving proportional, integral and derivative controllers with Feedforward and Cascade control structures. Preliminary results achieved in a Portuguese university are presented. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.