Listen, Learn, Understand – My Passage Through India

I recently returned from an eight day trip to India that was unlike any other business trip I’ve ever taken.  That’s quite a statement since in the past 25 years, I’ve taken quite a few and to all parts of the world. This trip was intriguing for two reasons.  First, I have a personal connection to India. My father was raised there. As a result, I felt quite at home in a country that most Westerners find overwhelming or exotic. In fact, many of the people I met on this trip reminded me of my family members.

Second, this is a unique and pivotal moment for India.  Home to 1.1 billion people, this diverse and huge nation is on the verge of taking a front row position on the world stage. Virtually every area of this complex society is modernizing at a rapid pace, and no part so rapidly or comprehensively as its educational system.

For the past decade at least, India has been investing heavily in education.  It is building schools, investing in equipment, expanding and developing faculty.  This investment is being spearheaded not only at the government level, but by expatriate Indians who are returning to India to invest and modernize.

This intense focus on education seems to be reaching a tipping point, as two of the country’s biggest goals are to provide education for everyone at a young age, and to vastly improve the availability of a quality, high level technical education.  We believe Quanser can play an important role in achieving the latter goal.

Paul Gilbert of Quanser (right)  and members of the City of Markham, Ontario, Trade Mission meet with IIT-Madras  faculty members to develop a better understanding of the challenges facing engineering educators in India. 

An Immense Need for Quality Engineering Graduates

As in other countries, India’s engineering education occurs on many levels. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) specialize in high level engineering education, much like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) does in the United States.  Eight IITs exist at the moment, with another eight scheduled to come on stream by 2015.  Over 100 Tier 1 universities have engineering departments, while approximately another 3,500 Tier 2 schools (public and private) also teach engineering or engineering technology. Ten years ago this system was graduating well under 100,000 engineers annually; today, they are graduating 700,000 engineers a year. (This compares to 7,000 annually in Canada and 65,000 in the United States.)  Anecdotally, only 25 per cent of that number is immediately employable, while the remaining graduates need some degree of retraining after they get jobs in industry. 

Clearly it’s not hard to identify India’s major technical educational issue – Quality; in that I include quality teaching and research materials, courseware, faculty development and overall best practices for motivating the new generation of engineering students.

The need to enhance Quality in engineering education is why Quanser is paying such attention to India.  We’re recognized around the world as a provider of high quality engineering educational materials for teaching and research in controls and robotics. 

Understanding the Challenges and Opportunities

My role on this trip was to gain a deeper, detailed understanding of the challenges faced by India’s different engineering institutions. To that end, I met with senior level educators and government officials in seven cities: Gandhinagar, Chennai, Mumbai, Madras, Delhi, Jodhpur, and Coimbatore.

During that process, we started identifying ways Quanser solutions and services could help meet the diverse schools’ needs. I also took part in conversations with key educational, government and industry decision makers, to learn how they saw their institutions growing in the coming years, and how they could efficiently and effectively make their schools into models of 21^st century engineering education.

Certainly such a conversation extends far beyond selling equipment. It involves a strategic discussion of so many things, including ways to raise the level of teaching, how to set up a modern controls and robotics labs, ways to encourage collaborative projects between Canadian and Indian universities, the potential of various virtual lab programs, how and when to conduct training, workshops and much more.

These conversations often centered on ways to excite and motivate the new generation of engineering students. Like their North American counterparts, these young Indian women and men respond to new methods, materials and learning environments. Theirs is the first generation of engineering students entering university familiar with cell phones, video games and tablets; a generation that is characterized by short attention spans, a remarkable ability to multi-task, and a strong interest in hands-on, practical learning.  Understanding them is the key to our helping Indian educational institutions achieve success.

Sunny Ray (left), Quanser's Channel Manager for South Asia and India, is working closely with Quanser CEO Paul Gilbert  (right)  to inform Indian engineering professors and deans of the ways engineering education can be enhanced through a strategic relationship with Quanser. 

This trip was not a one-man enterprise – far from it. Working closely with me was Sunny Ray, Quanser’s Channel Manager for South Asia and India. Sunny was tireless, meeting with engineering professors and deans to discuss the state of their curriculum, and joining the City of Markham, Ontario, Canada’s Trade Mission, which was meeting with Indian business and government officials.  He gave numerous presentations about Quanser, which is itself based in Markham. Thank you, Sunny, for your stalwart efforts.

Modernizing a Nation Through Education

To sum up, this trip represents to me a significant milestone in our efforts to understand the diverse, worldwide marketplace, as we strive to provide the cost effective and pedagogical effectively solutions our clients require.  For our colleagues and clients in India, we’re attempting nothing less than helping them build their nation through education. That’s a source of immense satisfaction for us.

This trip was a milestone on a very personal level as well.  Given my family’s connection to India, I take great pride in the fact that Quanser is committed to helping one of the oldest cultures in the world transform itself into one of the most vibrant modern communities in the future.

-       -  Paul Gilbert

Paul Gilbert is Chief Executive Officer of Quanser, Inc.

Quanser Salutes “Overall Best Industry-Linked Engineering Institutes” in India

PSG College of Technology (PSG), Coimbatore, and the College of Engineering, Pune, (CoEP) were recently ranked first and second in a joint survey of “best overall industry-linked engineering institutes” in India.

The survey was conducted by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Its goal was to highlight the best practices of industry and engineering university partnerships engaged in by AICTE-approved engineering institutes. A total of 156 engineering institutes took part in this voluntary survey.

Linking engineering schools with industry partners is widely seen as an effective strategy for bridging the gap between academia and industry and ensuring that newly-graduated engineers are well-trained and ready to enter the industry seamlessly.

Quanser supports this strategy in India and around the world. Our role is to develop hands-on experiments for engineering students that engage and motivate them. We offer additional support by providing ABET-aligned courseware professors can use to complement their teaching if they so choose.

Sunny Ray, Quanser Channel Manager for South Asia, speaks with guests at the 2011 opening of  a Quanser Center of Excellence at the College of Engineering, Pune, India.

For some time now, Quanser has had a presence at these high-ranking schools and Quanser workstations and courseware are part of their control labs.  In 2011 CoEP opened a Quanser Center of Excellence, and PSG is qualified as a Quanser Center of Core Competence. Furthermore, professors at both schools are currently writing papers and preparing to publish books based on teaching and research using Quanser solutions.  Clearly their commitment to bridging the gap between theory and practice in engineering education is reflected in the way they are partnering with us. I am not at all surprised they were the recipients of this prestigious award, and on behalf of Quanser, I congratulate them.

To sum up, companies in India are seriously challenged when it comes to finding enough industry-ready engineers directly out of university. Indeed, according to a study conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute on the emerging global labour market, only 25 percent of the engineers coming out of institutions in this country are immediately employable. The AICTE survey helps to highlight which schools are doing the best job in bridging the gap between academia and industry. I feel that the joint survey is very important and I look forward to working more closely with PSG, CoEP and other engineering institutes to meet this challenge.

-        Sunny Ray

Quanser Channel Manager, South Asia

Quanser Celebrates the Many Faces of Engineering

In keeping with the past festive season and with a vision of the hope and progress that engineering brings to the world, Quanser recently created an e-card celebrating the universal wish for a safer, cleaner and more peaceful future.

Fittingly, the message is delivered by the people of Quanser, both employees and family members, representing different generations and diverse nationalities. Can engineers make our dreams come true, the card asks?  Watch as 21 members of the Quanser family say they can.

Leading US Engineering Undergraduate Programs Use Quanser Technology

Being recognized for the excellence of its programs is important to universities – and to the students who are deciding which university to enroll at. Every year U.S. News and World Report magazine draws the attention of thousands of educators as they assess which engineering program to recommend to the young women and men destined to form the next generation of global engineers.  

Looking back at the engineering programs that U.S. News has spotlighted in 2012, we are pleased to note that Quanser controls technology can be found in the teaching and/or research labs of a great many of them, including the five undergraduate programs ranked at the top.

The Top Five U.S. engineering undergraduate programs for 2012, by U.S. News and World Report.  (Please note the two ties):

1.      Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

2.      Stanford University

3.      California Institute of Technology (tied for #3)

4.      University of California, Berkeley (tied for #3)

5.      Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) (tied for #5)

6.      University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (tied for #5)

MIT: Quanser’s Wireless Ethernet Embedded Control System (WEECS) is used to control robots in a Robotics course.

Stanford University: Quanser’s QUARC software was employed at Stanford University’s Aerospace Robotics Lab, where students were able to run a QUARC controller on computers that were over 10 years old and get closed loop sampling rates in the kilohertz. Using QUARC, they were able to design the controller in MATLAB®/Simulink® on a regular Windows® PC and an older computer running the QNX operating system. This has many benefits for real-time and reliable control and experimentation.

University of California, Berkeley: Dr. Masayoshi Tomizuka and his students are using a Quanser 3 DOF Gyroscope with added high accuracy encoders to develop controllers /estimators for Inertial Navigation Systems (INS).

Georgia Institute of Technology: Sterling Skinner of Georgia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering Department supervises a large lab that features over 20 Quanser Rotary Servo workstations, with 10 of those stations using Quanser QNX QUARC targets.

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign:  Dr. Soo Jo Chung of the Department of Aerospace Engineering is using a Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter in his research laboratory. To see more about what Dr. Chung is working on, click here.

Quanser salutes these educational institutions for their leadership in controls teaching and research. For the complete list of U.S. News and World Report-ranked engineering schools, click here.

Building Your Dream Lab with Quanser

Today’s engineering systems are highly complex but the typical university curriculum in engineering is often encumbered by mid twentieth century convention. For many professors, a significant part of the answer is better, richer hands-on education, and the undergraduate laboratory is one of the most important targets of their attention. Quanser has been collaborating with leading engineering universities to bring new life and relevance to the modern engineering lab.

Quanser systems are more than high performance devices. They are designed to support a pragmatic strategy of hands-on education innovation. At the core of this is a well-earned reputation for delivering flexible, cost-effective solutions through modular design of its product.

A Modular, Cost-Effective Educational Strategy

The modularity of the Rotary Servo product line is a great example of how a sound design can drive effective educational strategy. By adding one of ten unique add-on modules to the base servo motor, professors can extend the reach of their labs well beyond the traditional experiments. 

The Rotary Servo product line is a prime example of Quanser's modular, cost-effective strategy:  it features simple components that can be combined to create complex experiments that offer students new challenges.

Students can explore the complexities of flexible beams, or gyroscopic effects, or the dynamics of a multi-DOF system, and so much more. Overall, the design makes it easy to increase the number of stations while exponentially increasing the range of exercises and even courses through the add-on modules. In all, this is a highly cost-effective framework for an institution’s lab road map.

The Quanser Driving Simulator – a HIL Automotive “Video Game”

For Quanser, however, modularity is more than add-on hardware components. Recently, at the annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) in San Antonio, Texas, we demonstrated a unique application of the Rotary Servo system. Called the Quanser Driving Simulator (QDS), this concept demonstration presented a rich automotive application layer via the QUARC® software and its standard library of 3D visualization tools.

The Quanser Driving Simulator is a rich and creative application of the modular Rotary Servo system. A true Hardware-in-the-Loop automotive control system, it is  presented within a video game-like framework.  

The concept, on the surface is, “a video game on steroids”. But there is a profound difference. The servo motors have been programmed to represent the speed and position control of a real car. Through software, these motors are then connected to a model of the vehicle dynamics, a racetrack, and a driver model. In essence this is a true Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) automotive control system, and the control theory runs through all of these components and the actual relevance of very theoretical concepts become clear and intuitive. Additionally, that video game aspect can increase the motivation aspect as it adds a very familiar and often fun dimension to a lab, all from out-of-the-box components and readily accessible accessories.

The Quanser Driving Simulator received a great deal of enthusiastic attention at the recent annual conference of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Build Your Own Dream Lab

In many ways, the QDS begins pointing to the proverbial dream lab. It combines accessible hardware with meaningful applications and it illustrates how modularity extends into the software aspects within the context of the rotary product line. Beyond the rotary product line, however, is the potential growth via Quanser’s extended line of products that reaches into some of the most exciting and important application areas.

The Shake Table series allows you to conduct research or help students comprehend structural dynamics and control principles that can minimize damage from earthquakes.  

The Shake Table series for earthquake simulation, the Helicopter series for aerospace applications, or haptic experiments for biomedical applications, are examples of Quanser products that can bring a teaching lab, literally, to state of the art overnight. Additionally, these advanced devices are fully capable of supporting advanced research, further increasing the benefits to the institution.

The Helicopter series is just one example of Quanser's wide range of products and experiments that can lift a teaching lab to state of the art quality overnight. Like so many of Quanser's products and experiments, they are also capable of supporting advanced research.

The Quanser dream lab is fully realized by accessing all the necessary accessories and utilities – DAQ, power supplies, courseware, system models, and more. Quanser fundamentally believes that the best labs are ones that are easy to deploy, maintain, and readily scale, giving instructors and students the time to do what they do best – creatively explore complex concepts.

 - 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.

What Makes Our Linear Experiments a Popular Choice For So Many Professors?

Over the years Quanser’s linear motion experiments, modules and workstations have been the first choice for many professors teaching controls. Their popularity is due to a number of reasons. One key factor is the number of linear experiments available. Professors can choose from over 14 experiments to help them teach fundamental control concepts including modeling, position and speed control. 



A basic control concept is being learned here with the Quanser Linear Flexible Joint Experiment. Courseware included with this workstation covers such fundamentals as modeling and position control. Also shown is the NI CompactRIO with Quanser Q1-cRIO module and the Quanser VoltPAQ-X1. Quanser linear experiments can be flexibly configured to run with MATLAB/Simulink or with LabVIEW and NI CompactRIO.

The wide choice of experiments is possible in part because all of the products in the linear motion family are modular in design and become simple add-ons to our IP02 linear position base unit.

Like our other product lines, our linear controls family is flexible and adaptable. It utilizes a “building block” approach to learning and courseware. Students are more likely to grasp an array of concepts when they build on each other progressively. The available courseware also saves massive amounts of teaching prep time, a tremendous benefit for professors who have to balance their roles as teachers and researchers.
 
These experiments are integrated with National Instruments components and NI LabVIEW™ control design software. As a result, linear experiments can be configured to run with LabVIEW™ and the NI CompactRIO data acquisition platform as well as MATLAB^®/Simulink^®.

Last but far from least, because our linear system is open architecture in design, its components and peripherals can be flexibly re-purposed and used to conduct research.

These are among the reasons our linear motion control products have been selected as teaching tools, research tools or both by such renowned and diverse engineering educators as Professor Nejat Olgac of the University of Connecticut; Professor and Chair (EECS) Stephen M. Williams of the Milwaukee School of Engineering; Professor Victor Nasini of the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology (ITBA); and Professor Mohammad Elahinia of the University of Toledo, to name a few.

Clearly, whatever level of controls course you're teaching, you'll be able to rely on the captivating, hands-on Quanser approach that truly suits your course and your students. To find out more about what you can teach with our linear controls lineup, click here.

Real-World Lab Simulations Can "Drive" Students To Success

What happened when Quanser took some of its traditional, time-tested, controls equipment and added a new, motivating application layer of automotive driving simulation? It created a highly engaging controls application called the Quanser Driving Simulator (QDS). It’s like a video game on the surface, but underneath the QDS is a genuine Hardware-in-the-Loop engineering experience in an automotive design context. This is yet another new and creative path Quanser is exploring to engage students immediately and thoroughly. Watch as Quanser’s Chief Education Officer, Tom Lee, explains the QDS concept and a University of Toronto student describes her experience with it in class.

Set Your Research Up For Success

As a professor of engineering, some of the biggest demands on your time are preparing students to graduate with industry-ready engineering skills; and conducting innovative research in your area of expertise.

Versatile, cutting edge tools.  Wherever your interests lie, Quanser’s vast array of tools are designed to rapidly bridge the distance between theory and experiment. We provide mechatronics plants, modular systems and control design tools appropriate for research at all levels.  All are robust, reliable and built to perform.

Our systems consist of open architecture hardware you can use to test your theory while working within your existing lab.  Combined with that is Quanser’s QUARC real-time design software. It enables you to obtain accurate, repeatable results while saving remarkable amounts of research time. 

One such example is found in recent rehab work done by Professor Marcia O'Malley and her team from Rice University in Houston, Texas. To see how Professor O’Malley of Rice University established the promise of her R & D rehab project early on and secured additional funding by using cutting edge Quanser tools, click here.

The RiceWrist is a device designed to help rehabilitate people with spinal-cord injuries. 

Quanser’s rapid prototyping software and control hardware sped the
development of the RiceWrist. Speedy development was instrumental in the project establishing its validity and receiving additional funding. 
Photos courtesy of Prof. Marcia O'Malley

Over 20 years of expertise in controls at your disposal.  From research inception to completion, Quanser engineers are valuable resource persons you can lean on. They’re completely familiar with all our tools because they conceived and built them.  So when graduate students or lab assistants move on, you never lose the continuity of our support.

Our engineers can also aid in the research design or help you choose the components you require to build the best integrated rapid controls framework for your project. So whether it requires months or years, you can rely on Quanser’s ongoing support.

Semesters go by all too quickly and you need to make the most of the all-too-limited research resources available to you. To fully leverage those resources, you may wish to consider the tools, expertise and support available to you from Quanser.  It could be the best way to set up your research for success.

To discuss ways Quanser can help set up your research for success, contact us at info@quanser.com.

How Top Professors Help Their Students Get The Most Out of a Course

Any good controls professor can show his or her students how a controls experiment works.  But a great controls professor accomplishes much, much more. He or she helps their students see why that controls experiment is so valuable in the real world.

As you probably know, not all students come to their first controls class with a clear idea of why controls are so important. That’s why immediately identifying the importance of controls in sustaining our fast-paced daily lives should be one of the first goals of any controls professor.  Students who are presented with this results-oriented vision will then be ready to invest their time and energy in the task of learning the subject matter—simply because they’ll see the real-world applications that lie beyond the experiments and the theory.

These real-world applications are everywhere. They're found in DVD players and cars that parallel park themselves; in medical robotics and industrial production processes; and in all aspects of manned and unmanned flight, to name a few. The more your students are aware of these everyday applications, the more motivated they will be. These practical, real-life applications involve virtually every modern engineering discipline, including electrical, mechanical, biomedical, chemical, aerospace, unmanned systems, civil, robotics and mechatronics. Individually and collectively, they allow your students to engineer a better world.

No less a controls authority than Dr. Mark Spong agrees.  According to Dr. Spong, Dean of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering & Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin, “The 21^st century will be known as the age of automatic control.”  He elaborates: “Most of the critical problems facing society today, in sustainable energy, healthcare, the environment, security, and other areas, will rely on control engineering for solutions.”

The same holds true in the purely industrial realm, notes Dr. Spong.  “Industry is more and more focusing on embedded controls and sensing.  In the automotive industry, everything is drive by wire now: brakes, engine control, everything is becoming mechatronic in that sense.”

By identifying the real-world significance of the study of controls for your class, you will be able to attract, keep and graduate more and better students. You’ll help them focus on clear, professional goals and motivate them to graduate with industry-ready skills. Now what professor wouldn’t want to get their students ready for opportunities like that?

To see how Dr. Spong worked with Quanser to connect the real world with control theory for his students, click here.

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.

QUARC® Helps Researchers Bridge The Language Barrier and Grow

If you’re a MATLAB®/Simulink® user who is considering upgrading your research lab, it may be prudent to take some time to thoroughly review your short term and long term project goals. What is the state of your lab right now?  Are students engaged, motivated and excited about your lab? Where do you want it to be in the future?

Quanser’s experiments could definitely be part of a modular, incremental, budget-friendly solution.  But don’t overlook another valuable building block to accelerating your research and moving it forward: Quanser’s QUARC® control design software. QUARC works seamlessly with MATLAB/Simulink and offers you deep capabilities that are rarely fully exploited. 

Professor Aman Behal of the University of Central Florida's Electrical Engineering Department is a case in point. He took advantage of QUARC's Rapid Control Prototyping capability to save programmers months of development time because it bridges the gap between your simulations developed in MATLAB/Simulink and the real-time controller required to drive real hardware.

 Dr. Behal and his research assistant found that QUARC control software's ability to link

"incompatible" programming languages saved them many months of costly development time.

Because QUARC proved such a timesaver for Professor Behal, he began to consider how some of Quanser’s other building blocks – hardware such as the Rotary Servo systems – can be utilized in his other capacity as a teacher.

For more details on Professor Behal’s experience with Quanser and with QUARC, click here.

The Better the Lab, the Better the Student

When Professor Kelly Cohen joined the University of Cincinnati’s Aerospace Engineering Department, his goal was to attract better students and ultimately, better researchers. The key, he felt, was to ensure his lab had new, hands-on equipment that he and his students could count on.  He found Quanser’s experiments fit the bill exactly. 

One of the Quanser experiments in Professor Cohen's lab is the 2 DOF Helicopter.
This is just one of the hands-on controls experiments that is attracting better students
 to the University of Cincinnati's Aerospace Enginineering program.

They excited his students because the hands-on approach helped them grasp control concepts quicker.  In addition, since Quanser’s solutions were turn-key, Professor Cohen was able to get his lab up and running quickly.  The equipment's modular design gave the lab real flexibility to teach multiple experiments. He soon planned on choosing more modules to add even more depth to his teaching and research lab. Everybody won as Professor Cohen built his lab, his students deepened their understanding of control concepts and, inevitably, the quality of his available researchers increased.

To find out more about Professor Cohen's lab and how it assists his efforts to attract better researchers, click here.

A Simple Way To Build The Ideal Lab

With fall classes about to begin in a few short weeks, many controls professors are thinking about ways to update their labs to make the coming year’s teaching and learning experience a rewarding experience for their students as well as themselves.

A simple, effective and efficient solution professors and faculty administrators can really appreciate is Quanser’s unique “building blocks” approach to lab development.  Watch as Tom Lee, Quanser’s Chief Education Officer, demonstrates this incremental approach using Quanser’s Rotary Servo family of modules and experiments.

If you already have some elements of this lab, you’ll see how easy it is to continue to build it and enrich your students’ learning experiences.  If you are just starting to build your lab, Tom’s presentation will show you that the incremental building block approach is a sure way to build a “dream” lab of your own.

Using NI LabVIEW™? Teaching Controls? We May Have A Dream Lab for You.

Building the dream lab you've always wanted is now a practical, achievable goal.

Quanser and National Instruments have teamed up to deliver a turn-key platform for controls education that delivers what many engineering educators would call a “dream lab”.
 
It’s a “dream” because it brings controls theory to life, fully aligns with your course syllabus, and prepares students to be effective controls engineers once they graduate into the working world.


Hardware, software, courseware - it's all here to help advance teaching and research

This one-of-a-kind, turn-key platform helps high-achieving, budget-conscious professors keep students engaged with their studies, while allowing time to concentrate on research. How? By providing the following: 

Compatibility with Existing Software.  This platform was designed by Quanser and National Instruments specifically for LabVIEW™ users. It features the Quanser Rapid Controls Prototyping Toolkit, which allows students to easily interface with over 85 control, mechatronics or robotics experiments from Quanser.

Modular Design.  One of the most popular, flexible and modular systems built on this platform is the Quanser rotary servo workstation, designed for teaching the fundamentals of control.  With over 30 labs to choose from, it allows professors to evolve their lab and teach concepts from the most fundamental to the most advanced.

Pays For Itself.  This lab platform allows professors to teach control fundamentals and do research.  This multitasking capability makes it remarkably cost-effective.

Watch the video and learn why this dream lab would be such a practical choice for your teaching and research needs.