The major hurdle in accessing laboratory experimentation is the cost of acquiring experimental scientific equipment, which is unbearable for many institutions. This paper aims to provide the community of control educators, practitioners, and researchers with an open-source low-cost experimental setup and dedicated interface, which is flexible and very easily reproducible. The proposed apparatus is a setup of four interconnected tanks. The setup is representative of real-life industrial processes and it can be adjusted to allow for several configurations for flexibility. A user-friendly dedicated MATLAB/Simulink interface with a personal computer is developed. It supports a seamless shift between a numeric simulation of the quadruple-tank process dynamics and the interface with the physical experimental plant. The CAD models, technical drawings, wiring schematics, PCB design, interface, assembly tutorials, and several examples are provided in an open-source repository. The parts are inexpensive, readily obtained, and fast to assemble. Each setup costs under 650€ and takes roughly 4 h to assemble. In this paper, several application examples are presented, not only for educational purposes, but also for the validation of a state-of-the-art decentralized control method.

获得实验室实验的主要障碍是购买实验科学设备的成本，这对许多机构来说是难以承受的。本文旨在为控制教育者、从业者和研究人员社区提供一个开源的低成本实验设置和专用界面，该界面灵活且非常容易重现。所提出的装置是由四个相互连接的罐组成的。该设置代表了现实生活中的工业流程，并且可以进行调整以允许多种配置以实现灵活性。开发了一个用户友好的专用 MATLAB/Simulink 接口与个人计算机。它支持四罐过程动力学的数值模拟和与物理实验装置的接口之间的无缝转换。CAD模型、技术图纸、接线图、PCB 设计、接口、组装教程和几个示例都在开源存储库中提供。这些部件价格低廉、易于获得且组装迅速。每个设置成本低于 650 欧元，组装大约需要 4 小时。本文介绍了几个应用示例，不仅用于教育目的，还用于验证最先进的分散控制方法。