These have been modelled to be as realistic as possible and the documentation may include photographs of the actual experimental apparatus. Nothing can replace the real, hands-on experience of lab work but as class sizes increase and resources of time and money decrease some problems are encountered, e.g. that students are able to carry out fewer experiments or have to work in large groups. The Virtual Control Laboratory can overcome these problems.
All students can now do every control experiment in their own time.
Virtual experiments can be carried out either as a teaching aid before actual physical lab experiments, or for comparison after these experiments. If some aspect of the process or system is not understood properly then simulations can be used for clarification. It is possible to obtain results more rapidly than in a physical laboratory and so more examples can be tried. This laboratory manual briefly describes each experiment's aims and some of the theory. A more in-depth description is given with the actual experiment.