Effective engineering education on the basis of mechatronic laboratory systems and control algorithms obtained by rapid prototyping methodology

Abstract

W pracy przedstawiono metodykę nauczania opartą na wykorzystaniu laboratoryjnych systemów mechatronicznych oraz narzędzi do szybkiego prototypowania algorytmów sterowania. Stosowana metoda jest odpowiedzią na zapotrzebowanie rynku pracy na inżynierów z praktyką przy jednoczesnym uwzględnieniu finansowych możliwości uczelni wyższych. Istotną kwestią w procesie edukacji na studiach technicznych jest równowaga pomiędzy nauczaniem teorii a przekazywaniem umiejętności praktycznych. Przedstawiana metoda umożliwia zrealizowanie wymagań stawianych współczesnym laboratoriom technicznym.The article demonstrates teaching methodology on the basis of mechatronic laboratory systems and tools for the rapid prototyping of control algorithms. The presented solution is dedicated to nowadays teaching courseware as a methodology to meet the requirements for highly trained and educated engineers. The main difficulty in engineering education is to find a balance between theory and practice. The practical (based on experiments) education requires a lot of effort. First of all, it requires access to the appropriate lab. The methodology presented in the paper is based on cost effective mechatronics systems originated from industrial plants reduced in scale. The following systems, are exemplified: gantry crane, servo and balancing robot. The signals from the sensors and signals to the actuators bring the real world into the computer model. Mechatronic systems are connected to PC computer via interface board. Computer-Aided Engineering which supports Model-Based Design techniques is used for modeling, validation and implementing measurement and control applications. Two main advantages of this solution are well visible: to make the laboratory sets cost effective, and to allow a focus on the problem while omitting the details of its implementation. The proposed method is addressed mainly to educators of the control engineering, mechanical engineering, metrology and embedded control

    Similar works