Enable Named NI Education Specialty Alliance Partner

Quanser's partner, Enable Training and Consulting Inc. has been recently named an Education Specialty Alliance Partner by National Instruments. The first-of-its-kind designation certifies Enable as a go-to partner for educators and researchers looking for assistance with integration of NI hardware and software solutions.

Using its expertise and experience, Enable can work with universities and colleges to make sure they get most out of their LabVIEW and NI hardware-based tools. The offering spans from development of comprehensive and engaging curriculum to product setup and training, making sure NI solutions are effectively integrated in both classroom and lab settings.

Users of Quanser-NI platform for control research and education could already benefit from the strong Enable-NI partnership. Quanser collaborated with Enable developing modern media-rich courseware for engineering education.

"Enable has a unique mix of control systems and LabVIEW experience," says Keith Blanchet, Director of Business Development at Quanser. "We are very pleased to partner with them to better serve our growing community of NI platform Quanser customers."

Congratulations, Enable! We are looking forward to bringing this collaboration to the next level.

A Field Trip to the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute

Our host, Dr. Geoff Fernie, TRI Director

As a kid, I always loved field trips, and could enjoy a few extra ones volunteering for my kids' school ones. Now, when the boys claim its embarrassing to have a parent around on such occasions, Quanser helped. Partnering and collaborating with the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Canada's largest academic health sciences centre, for several years, the whole company got invited to visit the Institute and see how we are contributing to the great research going on in there.

The CEAL motion simulator

TRI is home to one of the world's most advanced rehabilitation facilities - Intelligent Design for Adaptation, Participation and Technology (iDAPT). The centerpiece of iDAPT is the Challenging Environment Assessment Lab (CEAL), a huge underground research lab with a 6 DOF hydraulic motion simulator where researchers can study interactions between people and their environment. 

Entering the WinterLab payload

Quanser partnered with TRI on CEAL development  - our QUARC real time control software is actually at the heart of this unique lab, controlling the motion simulator. I had read about CEAL previously, but seeing it in real life is really impressive. Several "payloads" or chambers simulating different environments and conditions can be put on the motion simulator to perform various research projects. 

2 DOF Gantry and safety harness

To protect the people actually performing tests, a safety harness is mounted on the roof. This is also a contribution of the Quanser team - our engineers designed an active robotic system that follows a person's movements around the chamber in a non-intrusive manner.

Inside the StreetLab

We had an opportunity to check some of the payloads, including the WinterLab that can simulate different conditions such as cold, wind, snow drifts and ice. It can simulate cold and icy sidewalks really well!

Another interesting payload we saw was the StreetLab, with a high res, 180-degree field-of-view curved visual projection screen combined with a treadmill interface and a wheelchair simulator.

We also visited other TRI research labs, and were amazed by the work they do. It was quite inspiring for all of us visitors from Quanser to see the real-life applications of our technology, skills and expertise. Definitely a recommended field trip for high school kids, and sorry, boys, I am volunteering for that one!

The New NI myRIO Brings Out the Kid in Quanser at NIWeek 2013

What would compel 4,000 smart people to travel to Texas in August, only to braise in 40° C (105° F, y’all), full humidity heat for an entire week? Well, if you are an engineering enthusiast (AKA nerd) like me, you are attending NIWeek in Austin. Every year, on meteorologically the worst possible week of the year, our friends at National Instruments (NI) host a celebration of technology, and engineering heroism unlike any other event in the world. As per usual, Team Quanser was there to share in the fun. 

NIWeek has become the event where Quanser engineers truly strut our stuff… our digital dazzle… scientific sassy… mechatronic mojo. Not so much for some well-thought-out marketing rationale to clearly demonstrate the core benefits of our solutions, but because it’s the one time of the year where the engineers are unashamedly engineers… builders, explorers, rascals, tinkerers. 

Cameron Fulford, Engineering Manager, and Tom Lee, Chief Education Officer, both of Quanser, prepare to fly the Qball X-4 quadrotor, Quanser’s flagship UAV platform, with the newly introduced NI myRIO embedded hardware device.

This year, we sure did have fun. One of the key highlights of the conference for NI was the launch of their latest (and truly sick) product, the NI myRIO, a richly featured embedded computing platform that is pointed directly at students who are itching to break away from their desktop chains and make mobile magic happen. Unlike other hobby platforms, the myRIO is a true NI solution with all of the robustness and support software features that will make the difference between real engineering and hacking for students.

Quanser was one of the few privileged groups to get a prototype unit well ahead of launch so that we could get a head start on integration into our product line and maybe even develop a couple of demos in time for the launch. So a sensible company would have used this opportunity to create interesting demos on how the myRIO, when combined with our devices, can offer richer educational experiences. 

NIWEEK is one of the world’s most important engineering conferences. This year’s event featured the launch of the revolutionary NI myRIO device, a richly featured embedded computing platform that allows students to work outside the lab to design real projects quickly.

What did we do? We strapped it on to our flagship unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform, the Qball X4 quadrotor, and flew it around the conference, generally delighting people with the sheer cool factor and occasionally annoying people with the ear-assaulting hum of the Qball’s research-grade motors.

The Qball is one of Quanser’s most celebrated research platforms. Bleeding edge research groups around the world to validate complex algorithms for multi-agent unmanned vehicle experiments (i.e. intelligent, collaborative robots). Unfortunately, prior to this year, there really was no practical way to have the Qball work on the NI platform simply because there was no embedded platform capable and rich enough to do all the things that the Qball does… until the myRIO.

The end result, as we say in Canada was, “beauty eh?” It was truly impressive. Not just the fact that the Qball, powered by myRIO, flew crisply and in a well-controlled way, but the actual integration process was surprisingly smooth.

As we illustrated during our demo at the keynote, the work that NI has invested in a full range of multitalented express VI’s for a whole range of essential subsystems and functions reduced the development effort to a matter of days. We had been bracing ourselves for an effort of weeks (the UAV applications are some of the trickiest) but thankfully we were proven wrong. 

So where do we go from here? When can you buy a Qball V2.0 powered by NI myRIO? When can you feel and breathe the magic yourself? We have no idea. The reality is the Qball is an entire platform with options for optical tracking, and a wide range of experimental applications. It’s so much more than just getting it to fly. It’s also not exactly the kind of product that people buy for use by undergrads. But in the end, I think this was an amazing illustration of the true power and potential of the myRIO platform.

Specs aside, it really brought out the kid among our engineering team and got us to be more creative and ambitious. It was an exciting project. It was a fun project. Thankfully, it was not as hard as we thought. And in the end, it was the right thing to do. 

P.S. I wasn’t totally honest. We actually did do a sensible myRIO thing as well. We announced and demonstrated the upcoming Quanser Terminal Board (QTB) for NI myRIO, a device that quickly connects the myRIO to most of Quanser’s core plants offering users a terrific, new, cost-effective DAQ option for control systems. Yawn.

Helping Students Experience Engineering

National Instruments is well-known for building high quality I/O tools and graphical programming technologies that serve engineers and scientists around the world.  Quanser is well-known for its expertise in creating plants, models and controls experiments that engineering students can interact with.

What happens when the two companies put their heads together?  Simple. Students "go beyond the equation" and actually experience engineering.  Watch as Dave Wilson, National Instruments’ Director of Academic and Corporate Marketing, explains.

NI LabVIEW Users Now Have Access to LabVIEW-based Courseware for Over 30 Quanser Control Experiments

With the 2012 introduction of Quanser’s Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) Toolkit for NI LabVIEW and Q1-cRIO control interface module, professors and students using NI LabVIEW are able to interface with over 85 control experiments from Quanser.

Now, thanks to Quanser’s recently released LabVIEW-based courseware, they can possess study materials, exercises and more for over 30 hands-on control experiments. These experiments include virtually all of Quanser’s rotaryand linear experiments, as well as some more advanced mechatronic, aerospace and process control systems. The benefits this courseware offers teaching professors and students are significant.

Professors save time on course development.  Since course material fully compatible with LabVIEW is provided with the experiments, professors wind up with more available for teaching at a high level or conducting research. Instructor and student workbooks include comprehensive student assignments that are ready to use right out of the box.

Students can study controls at an introductory or advanced level.  LabVIEW is an excellent software platform on which students can learn everything from control fundamentals to advanced concepts through engaging, hands-on experiments. For example, students new to controls can become familiarized with PID control by tuning the control gains on the front panel and examining how the experiment response changes, while more advanced students may wish to modify the block diagram and implement their own feedback control strategies.  It’s all possible thanks to fully integrated Quanser courseware and supplied LabVIEW Virtual Instruments (VIs).

A wide range of teaching topics.  The courseware covers many classic modeling and control topics, including modeling a system using a step response, designing a PID-based controller, and state feedback control.

Courseware guides you from set up to lab experiments.  Quanser controls courseware typically includes hard copies and digital copies of Instructor and Student Workbooks and /or Laboratory Guides, a User Manual and a Quick Start Guide. The courseware helps you quickly set up the experiment in your lab, provides a summary of background theory, as well as a set of pre-lab assignments (questions) you can use to test students’ understanding of it before they start the laboratory exercises. Many Quanser systems have multiple sets of lab exercises; for example, with the Rotary Servo Base Unit, you can teach modeling, position control and speed control labs. 

Quanser courseware typically includes Instructor and Student Workbooks and/or 

Laboratory Guides, a User Manual and a Quick Start Guide.

ABET-aligned content.   The courseware conforms to the requirements established by ABET, Inc., the recognized accreditor for college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering and technology.  This may help your institution in the accreditation process. The alignment process was conducted in collaboration with Professor Hakan Gurocak, Washington State University, Vancouver, USA.

Developed by experts.  Quanser courseware is authored by an experienced team of Quanser curriculum developers and engineers, headed by ProfessorJacob Apkarian, Ph.D., Quanser’s founder and Chief Technical Officer. In keeping with the integration process, some material was been developed in cooperation with specialists at National Instruments.

LabVIEW VIs are included.  LabVIEW Virtual Instruments (VIs) are offered with all Quanser experiments. The VIs are based on the laboratory exercises presented in the documentation. You can easily modify the VIs to suit your particular course.

Access to the courseware updates. Quanser documentation is regularly reviewed and revised.  Changes are based on several criteria including feedback from existing users and collaborating professors, and internal and external peer reviews. We also seek out novel ways to present and deliver our curriculum that would make it easier for professors to adapt the courseware for their specific needs. In the future we plan to introduce an online update mechanism that will give professors access to the latest documentation.

If you wish to download a course material sample, click here.

Six Ways We've Enhanced QNETs for Teaching Introductory Controls

I would like to let you know about the latest revision of the QNET Resources — the complete set of documentation, courseware and software VIs that comes with each QNET trainer. To be released this spring, this newest version of the QNET Resources assembles six new features that will mark a significant shift forward for our existing and future QNET customers.

QNET controls experiments can be used for multiple engineering courses, including Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Biomedical and Aerospace. 

The New QNET Resources Delivers an Enhanced User Experience

Our focus for the new revision of the QNET Resources was to improve the usability and efficacy of the software, documentation and courseware for teaching undergraduate controls. The changes we've made include not only revisions to the existing courseware and documentation, but new material as well. Some of the improvements include:

1. A collection of instructional videos provided for each QNET trainer
• They save professors’ teaching time while helping students quickly grasp the capabilities of each QNET trainer. The videos cover initial setup, curriculum structure, real-life applications and more.
2. Updated, ABET-aligned courseware
• This ensures that the courseware is comprehensive and includes detailed assessment guidelines.
3. Individual setup material, Quick Start Guides and VIs for each trainer
• Faster, easier setup of each QNET experiment.
4. Cleaner-designed VIs
• This makes them easier to understand and see how the theoretical block diagrams relates to the actual implementation.
5. Additional lecture materials, including Powerpoint slides
• They work to help professors introduce the labs in their lectures.
6. Additional documentation updates and revisions
• They improve the look and feel of the courseware.

 The new QNET Resources will be released this spring and will offer added value to professors and students alike.  

Quanser QNET Trainers: Helping Professors Teach Introductory Controls For A Decade

The Quanser/National Instruments Engineering Trainers, or QNETs, were introduced almost 10 years ago as a series of hardware platforms for teaching a variety of undergraduate controls concepts. The boards were designed to snap into the ELVIS I data acquisition (DAQ) board developed by National Instruments (NI).

You can choose from six different Quanser QNET trainers for the NI ELVIS II workstation.

Over the years, we’ve made several updates to the platform.  We added new and innovative trainers, improved performance, and made the virtual instruments (VIs) and documentation more user-friendly. Today, a total of six diverse trainers for the NI ELVIS II DAQ are found in undergraduate engineering labs around the world.  They cover the basics of servo, process, and task-based control, as well as introducing students to flight control, bio-instrumentation and the sensors used in mechatronic systems. Using them gives undergraduate students experience working on challenging and industrially-relevant problems that can be applied to current and future technology. They help educators teach effectively even as their relatively small footprint optimizes lab space.

To learn more about our QNET offerings, click here.  And stay tuned to this blog for upcoming posts about the six individual QNET trainers.

 - Peter Martin

Peter Martin is a Curriculum Developer at Quanser

How To Build An Efficient Controls Teaching Lab With One, Flexible, Turn-Key Platform

The Rotary Servo and Linear Motion Control Labs are two of the world's most popular, flexible and modular solutions for teaching controls. 

Engineering educators and students who use either one find themselves working with a robust, optimized and integrated workstation that offers peace of mind, versatility and maximum efficiency. 

Both labs come complete with all the components and peripherals you need.  Taken together, those components and peripherals form a complete turn-key platform that will allow you to offer a broad, dynamic controls education.  That platform consists of five key elements.

The five key elements in our NI-based turn-key controls platform are Quanser's Rapid Control Prototyping Toolkit,  Quanser courseware and pre-designed VIs, the individual Quanser experiment and amplifier, Quanser's Q1-cRIO module, and the NI CompactRIO.

Quanser Rapid Control Prototyping Toolkit for NI LabVIEW™

In terms of software, the turn-key controls platform is based on National Instruments LabVIEW™ and the Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) Toolkit, a new LabVIEW™ add-on developed by Quanser. Designing and deploying high performing controllers is an intuitive and straightforward process with RCP Toolkit. Combined with the LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation and LabVIEW™ Mathscript RT Modules, Quanser RCP Toolkit is a powerful design tool spanning the spectrum from simulation to implementation.

Quanser Courseware and Pre-designed VI’s

Pedagogical curriculum is provided with every Rotary Servo workstation and most Linear Motion workstations.  The curriculum covers a wide range of popular control topics. Instructor and Student Workbooks come complete with pre-lab assignments and in-lab, step by step instructions. These materials are designed to save time on course development. Workbooks and comprehensive student assignments are ready to use right out of the box.

Quanser Experiment and Amplifier

To help your engineering students assimilate controls theory and stay motivated, create a lab that offers many workstations featuring either or both the Rotary Servo SRV02 Base Unit and Linear Servo Base Unit, along with different add-on modules. This allows you to cover a wider range of control topics, from introductory to advanced, and expose students to different hardware. Several voltage amplifiers are available to support the experiments. Small, lightweight and portable, they are ideal for all complex controls configurations related to educational or research needs.

Quanser Q1-cRIO Module

Quanser’s Q1-cRIO is a C Series data acquisition and control module designed for NI CompactRIO. It offers a convenient set of inputs and outputs that provides all channels required to control all of Quanser’s experiments. Several other data acquisition and interfacing options are available, targeting both NI CompactRIO and Microsoft Windows® platforms.

National Instruments CompactRIO

NI CompactRIO offers an embedded, deterministic real-time platform on which control algorithms can be deployed, and real-world signals interfaced to via the Quanser Q1-cRIO module. Workstations for the Rotary Servo and Linear Motion Control Labs can also be based on Windows® PC controllers. 

Achieve a New Level of Efficiency and Effectiveness in Teaching Controls, Robotics and Mechatronics

Get Your Lab Up and Running Immediately: Both Rotary Servo and Linear Motion Control Labs based on this platform are designed for quick, repeated assembly and disassembly. Plug and play connectors and provided cables allow students or lab technicians to make fast, error-free connections when setting up a control workstation. There is no need to strip wires or solder custom cables.

Quality and Precision You Can Rely On: You can count on the workstation components to perform semester after semester, even when handled by the most enthusiastic students.

Ongoing Tech Support: Whether your lab requires months or years to complete, you can rely on support from Quanser and National Instruments. Count on little or no downtime since the same engineers who designed and built both Control Labs are available to offer rapid assistance.

The Right Partners: As academic specialists, Quanser and National Instruments are uniquely placed to help meet the challenges facing engineering faculties. 

Contact us today at info@quanser.com to help design your control lab.

Unveiled: Two New Quanser Products Allow Quicker Development of Control Algorithms in LabVIEW™

Last month I had the pleasure of attending the National Instruments NI Days UK event in London. This one-day event brought together over 600 leading engineers and scientists from across the UK and Ireland to see the latest advancements in design, control and test.

 As part of the academic track, I had the opportunity to run a couple of hands-on sessions to teach professors and researchers how they could quickly and effectively develop control algorithms to control real hardware in LabVIEW™. In each of the two hour-long sessions, the attendees were able to configure the data acquisition (DAQ) hardware, obtain real-world sensor data, command a servo motor open loop and then, program a basic control algorithm in LabVIEW. The algorithm was then deployed onto the stand-alone real-time controller, the NI CompactRIO.

The Quanser Q1-cRIO control interface module is designed to be driven by the RCP Toolkit for NI LabVIEW™  and interfaces with over 85 control experiments from Quanser. The module is compatible with NIcRIO-9024 controllers paired with the NI cRIO-9113 chassis.

It was all made possible because of two new products, a new C-series DAQ, the Quanser Q1-cRIO and Quanser’s Rapid Controls Prototyping Toolkit add-on for LabVIEW, both of which had been under development for the past year. These two new products greatly simplify the hardware access, configuration and algorithm deployment onto the cRIO.

For those of you that have had experience developing your own embedded controllers on the cRIO platform, you'll understand what a feat this was for an untrained audience. In the past for this to be possible, the controls engineer would first have to learn how to program the cRIO's FPGA, and then code and debug hardware access configurations and hardware algorithms, such as quadrature decoding. Then after hours or days of this phase of development, they would be ready to start doing what they originally wanted to do, and that is to develop their control algorithms. That kind of efficiency is of great value to anyone working in controls education and research.

The Quanser Rapid Control Prototyping Toolkit is a new add-on to the NI LabVIEW™  graphical development environment. With the Q1-cRIO, igreatly simplifies the hardware access, configuration and algorithm deployment onto the NI CompactRIO. 

This was the first time that Quanser’s RCP Toolkit and Q1-cRIO were used by education professionals so I was watching closely to see how they took to the experience. But as the sessions progressed and each and every one of the participants got their servo motors moving under control, I was both pleased and proud that the development efforts of our R&D team had hit the mark.

- Derry Crymble

Academic Solutions Advisor

Simplify and Accelerate Control Design with Quanser RCP Toolkit for NI LabVIEW™

There’s nothing more frustrating for students than wasting precious time setting up hardware and software when they should really be spending most of their lab time focused on high-level learning.  To help anyone working in the National Instruments (NI) LabVIEW™ graphical development environment to avoid that problem, we created the Quanser Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) Toolkit. 

The RCP Toolkit is a key element in Quanser's NI-based turn-key platform for controls education.  When combined with NI's Control Design and Simulation and Mathscript modules, it allows your students to accomplish everything from simulation to implementation.

The RCP Toolkit is one of five key elements in our NI-based turn-key platform for controls education. When it is combined with NI’s Control Design and Simulation and Mathscript modules, it becomes a true Rapid Control Prototyping environment, a design tool that allows your students to accomplish everything from simulation to implementation.

Essentially, the RCP Toolkit is a set of three preconfigured HIL interface VIs - Initialize, Read, Write - that simplify and therefore speed up many common controls, robotics and mechatronics programming tasks.  

The Quanser RCP Toolkit is a set of VI's that significantly  speed up programming tasks and allow students to concentrate on high-level learning.

Simplified, Streamlined Learning

Using the Toolkit, cRIO and Windows-based controllers can be targeted using a single VI, and targets can be switched through a single menu. In addition, all outputs are safely zeroed when the controller is stopped appropriately or aborted unexpectedly.  A three-dimensional visualization of Quanser’s rotary inverted pendulum control experiment is included to help students bridge the gap between the theory and practical implementation of the topics you are teaching. 

To help students bridge the gap between theory and practical implementation,  a three-dimensional visualization  of Quanser's rotary inverted pendulum experiment is included.

Adding to the speed and simplicity is the availability of Stream VI’s that add a set of protocol-independent communication VI’s in which communications are abstracted to two basic VI’s – Stream Server and Stream Client. Students can then switch easily between a number of protocols such as TCP/IP, shared memory or RS232 using the same application. Last but not least, the RCP Toolkit supports over 50 data acquisition boards from both National Instruments and Quanser.

If your teaching or research lab incorporates the NI LabVIEW™ graphical development environment, adding the Quanser RCP Toolkit allows you to significantly enhance its simplicity and effectiveness for everyone who uses it.

For software specifications and related information about the Quanser RCP Toolkit for NI LabVIEW™, click here.  For a demonstration, contact us at info@quanser.com.

On The Road with the National Instruments Campus Bus Tour 2012

Both National Instruments (NI) and Quanser share a strong belief that engineers learn better with hands-on tools. However, not every campus has the latest and greatest hardware and software tools available for students, researchers, and educators to use. So, with that in mind, NI decided to bring the hands-on engineering experience to North American campuses one at a time! The first ever NI LabVIEW™ Campus Tour is currently traveling to universities and colleges across the US and Canada and showcasing the latest tools for engineering education and research, including some of Quanser's hands-on experiments.

The NI LabVIEW™ Campus Tour is a 4-station "Lab On Wheels" visiting scores of North American college campuses throughout 2012 and 2013.

I had the opportunity to travel along with the Campus Tour bus last week through the midwest United States - road trip! I spent as much time teaching visitors about Quanser's education solutions as I did learning about the high-tech NI hardware and software tools and how they are applied in engineering research and industry.

At the time I met up with the bus, the tour had already been under way for weeks, travelling each day to a new town to visit as many campuses as possible. I joined up with the bus at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, then on to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and then the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. I wasn't sure whether I would be the rock star or the roadie on this trip, but that's what made it an adventure.

As part of the U.S. Midwest portion of the Campus Tour, the NI LabVIEW™ Tour Bus visited three major universities in three days.

The bus was beyond my expectations. An engineer's dream lab on wheels, the bus had more high-tech toys (i.e. expensive engineering gizmos) than most university labs. You step onto the bus and see benches filled with cutting edge equipment and monitors displaying the programs they are running. One corner of the bus I was already familiar with was the controls section, which featured the Quanser Rotary Inverted Pendulum and the Quanser Active Suspension experiments. Both experiments were hooked up to NI CompactRIO platforms using the new Quanser Q1-cRIO module for data acquisition and connectivity to the plants. LabVIEW™ software was driving the experiments. The visitors were always delighted when I showed them how the inverted pendulum can swing up and balance the pendulum and how the 3D race car visualization is used to bring a real-world dimension to the active suspension system. I think these were successful examples of how engaging hands-on hardware can be used to captivate and motivate students and researchers alike.

The Quanser Controls area is one of four LabVIEW-based stations inside the Tour Bus. On display are the Quanser Rotary Inverted Pendulum and Active Suspension experiments.

Throughout the day, visitors would come on the bus to see all of the four stations: control systems, 3-phase power, civil engineering, and RF communication experiments. The solutions ranged from student-level tools such as the NI MyDAQ and the NI ELVIS experiment platform up to advanced research and industry grade measurement systems running on the NI PXI computer platforms. So there was something for everyone on board. What I found really interesting was the large spectrum of engineering applications covered by LabVIEW™ and the hardware tools presented. Seeing these demonstrations really makes you feel like with the right tools you can do anything, if you know what you're doing!

Vistors to the Tour Bus spoke with NI field engineers and got a close-up view of LabVIEW™-based demonstrations for teaching and research.

I realized that the campus tour is a lot like a tradeshow or conference, where you have to be part roadie and part rock star. I'm glad I got a chance to go with the tour for a while, not only to demonstrate Quanser equipment and our collaboration with NI, but also to spend time with the NI field engineers and learn more about their solutions for cutting edge engineering. Check out the NI Campus Tour dates for upcoming stops including several Canadian universities this Fall.

Cameron

Five Things To Look For When Choosing Lab Equipment

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
     - Confucius (551 – 479 BCE)

These words of wisdom are as relevant today as they were 2500 years ago when they were first written. They reflect the most effective way to teach controls and create the ideal learning environment for your students, especially hands-on experimentation that bridges the gap between theory and practice. Adhering to the following guidelines will help you choose lab equipment wisely and ensure your learning environment will be the best it can be.

Your students will benefit when you provide them with the best possible learning environment.

Hands-on experimentation.  Look for experiments that are created expressly to help your students get practical experience in controls. As an example, our hands-on devices have captivated students for more than 20 years. Interacting with them, students learn fundamental concepts through their senses. This allows students to better assimilate theory and ultimately become creative and well-rounded engineering graduates.

Easy set up.  Setting up a control experiment or a complete lab should be simple and straightforward.  To that end, our labs consist of modular elements and include all the components and peripherals your students will need. Take Quanser's Rotary Servo Control Lab.  All of its available hands-on experiments are designed for quick, repeated assembly and disassembly. Plug and play connectors and provided cables allow students or lab technicians to make fast connections when setting up a control workstation. There is no need to strip wires or solder custom cables. The same is true for all Quanser experiments.

Our Rotary experiments alone you offer over 30 hands-on labs built around a Rotary Servo Base Unit (SRV02).  Nine experimental modules can be added on to the Rotary Servo Base Unit. So your control lab can consist of up to 10 different workstations, each featuring a different module to help students learn introductory, intermediate and advanced control concepts.

Building block courseware.  Another important consideration when choosing lab equipment is the availability of accompanying courseware to teach basic control topics in logical, progressive steps. With each experiment, Quanser provides an array of courseware that can include instructor workbooks, student workbooks, user manuals, laboratory guides and quick start guides. One hands-on experiment builds on another, so students can grasp concepts and then increase their knowledge a step at a time.

Our courseware is designed so you can use it to create your curriculum or supplement it. Either way, you’ll save valuable prep time and be able to spend your classroom hours working with your students at a high level.

A relentless focus on the real world.  We offer you hands-on experiments and building block courseware geared to connect your students to real-life engineering problems.  That's why our Rotary Pendulum experiment teaches classic self-balancing dynamics – the same controls problem that was faced by the inventor of the Segway electric vehicle. Our Rotary Flexible Link experiment introduces students to the kind of flexibility challenge presented to the engineers who designed the Canadarm Shuttle Remote Manipulator System. Our Rotary Gyro/Stable Platform experiment teaches your students about such real-world applications as space satellite orientation.  The list goes on.

Controls applications are crucial to the safe, efficient operation of modern transportation technology.

  

The Rotary Servo experiment teaches concepts integral to such high-precision applications as a CD-ROM drive.

Make the most of a Quanser - National Instruments campus visit. If you live and teach in North America, be sure to check out the National Instruments (NI) LabVIEW™  Campus Tour should it come to your university this fall or spring. This specially-outfitted RV recreational vehicle is taking four NI-based technical workstations that highlight teaching and research applications on the road to 120 universities across North America. The Controls workstation will feature two automated Quanser-NI powered demos: Servo motor with Inverted Pendulum module, and Active Suspension.  For more information and the NI LabVIEW™ Campus Tour schedule, click here.  To discuss any particular challenge and solution you have in your controls courses, contact us at info@quanser.com about having an Academic Solutions Advisor come and meet with you.

Is National Instruments' LabVIEW™ Campus Tour, featuring a NI-Quanser Controls Workstation, coming to your North American campus in 2012 -2013? Check the schedule.

Attracting, retaining students and graduating students are more of a challenge than ever.  One of the best strategies for ensuring you accomplish all three is to provide your students with a learning environment that allows them to move well past theory to the solid understanding that comes from hands-on experience. Confucius would definitely approve.

What Happens in Austin… Gets Posted on a Blog…

Every year, National Instruments (NI) call upon the engineers of the world to gather and celebrate the achievements and potential of engineering, and to honor and perpetuate nerd culture, and to do justice to the folksy mantra, “Keep Austin Weird!”  This annual phenomenon is, of course, NI Week. Quanser has been a long time strategic partner of NI and this year, with no exaggeration, our experience at NI Week 2012 held in August, was the best ever.

Unlike the more scholarly engineering conferences, NI Week is unabashedly festive in tone. Yes, there are plenty of technical sessions where attendees get updates on the latest esoteric tips and tricks on data acquisition. But the true highlights of the conference often erupt during the plenary sessions or even on the exhibits floor. There people have a chance to congregate and channel their “inner Thomas Edison” in a single location.  Quite often, magic seems to happen.

Control visionary Dr. Mark Spong drops by the Quanser Booth during NIWEEK 2012.

This year we showcased several important milestones. The most strategic was the announcement and demonstration of two new exciting products: the Quanser Q1-cRIO DAQ module for the NI Compact RIO platform, and the Quanser Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) Toolkit software for LabVIEW™. Collectively these products streamline the deployment of even the most ambitious control systems application a lot easier. In their respective ways, these two new products take care of a lot of the cumbersome wiring and I/O software housekeeping that curse most users.

The Quanser Q1-cRIO DAQ module for the NI CompactRIO platform ensures simpler interfacing and faster connectivity. They help students work more efficiently
and focus on learning.

cRIO and LabVIEW have always been excellent tools for a wide range of control systems work but the Q1-cRIO and RCP Toolkit make the NI platform truly complete. In many ways, the combination of NI’s traditional DAQ and instrumentation product line and Quanser’s control-centric product line collectively comprise a market-leading, end-to-end solution for modern control systems education and research.

 

Above: a closed loop controller developed with the Quanser RCP Toolkit. 
This clear visualization bridges the gap between theory and practice and
helps students grasp concepts better.

As important and strategic as these product launches were, the real fun was our presentation of the Quanser Driving Simulator (QDS). We debuted this innovative approach to undergrad control lab experiences earlier this year at the ASEE conference. We reprised this concept as part of the NI Week Academic Forum “sub-conference”. Additionally, we were invited to present and demonstrate QDS as part of the keynote presentation for the Academic Forum.

The tech conference keynote … we’ve all seen iconic footage of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates standing atop a big stage, and with great fanfare, usher in a new vision of one thing or another with huge hyperbolic promises and a jaw-dropping demo. I wasn’t exactly Steve or Bill unfortunately… I look terrible in a turtleneck, and our demo actually worked… but it’s about as close to that as I have ever been. Ably assisted by Quanser “demo jock” Peter Martin, we did our best techno-samba on stage.

On stage at the Academic Forum during NIWEEK 2012: Dave Wilson, NI's Director of Academic Programs; Tom Lee, Quanser's Chief Education Officer; and (partially hidden)
Peter Martin, Quanser's  demo jock and "Human-In-The-Loop", demonstrating
the Quanser Driving Simulator.

Dave Wilson, NI’s Director of Academic Programs and the principal speaker for the keynote, proclaimed “We nailed it!”. Translation: all the demos worked, all the key points were made, the audience laughed at the jokes, even the bad ones, and most importantly, the audience got it.

 

NI President, CEO and Co-founder Dr. James Truchard experiences the Quanser Driving Simulator for himself. Next to him is Quanser Chief Technology Officer and Founder Dr. Jacob Apkarian.

The Quanser message was in many ways a profound statement of what can be done in education with some cleverness and the right tools. The QDS pedagogy introduces a dynamic, motivating application layer persistently through all of the labs in a given course sequence. In this sense, it’s easier for students to relate abstract concepts to the real world and to connect ideas to each other. As an added bonus, the QDS introduces students to the critically important techniques of Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing, which have revolutionized modern advanced industry. Unfortunately, as important as HIL is, the conventional curriculum has yet to reconcile the new with the old. QDS offers an efficient path to achieving this.

In 2009, while I was still with Maplesoft, I had the pleasure to be on stage in Austin (ASEE was held there that year), with the then-young Keith Blanchet, Quanser’s Director of Business Development. That was the first time that I had collaborated on a presentation with this weird company called Quanser. You can read the account here. 

A well-seasoned Keith Blanchet impresses some young engineers
with his technological and educational wisdom.

That collaboration actually triggered my interest and eventual explorations into the complex relationships between the physical world and the theoretical world and this exploration lead me to my current job—and back to Austin. If you read between the lines of my previous post, there was a very strong “prescriptive” dimension, i.e., if we do this, the world would be better. Fast forward to last week, when I got the real sense that my words on stage this time around were fundamentally “descriptive”, i.e., we HAVE achieved this and we can see the changes happening.  I’ve been and continue to be very impressed with Quanser and its vision and focus on wildly imaginative yet practical ways to enrich modern education.

  - Tom Lee
 

As Chief Education Officer at Quanser, Tom Lee is focused on spearheading the development of Quanser's global academic community. He is closely involved with Quanser's technology and solution development process and the company's partner and alliance programs. He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, and an MASc and BASc in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo.