The Challenges in Engineering Education - and How To Solve Them

In a recent interview, Dr. Hans Hoyer, the Secretary General of the International Federation of Engineering  Education Societies (IFEES) and a member of the prestigious Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC), offers his perspective on the major issues facing engineering education, along with the new approaches he favours to help overcome those challenges.

As a member of both GEDC and IFEES, Quanser is proud to partner with these organizations to improve engineering education worldwide and strongly supports the strategies Dr. Hoyer highlights to ensure the graduation of larger numbers of globally-prepared engineers. Read the full interview.

MIT Students Using Quanser and NI Tools in Feedback Control Systems Course

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) undergraduate and graduate students taking the Feedback Control Systems course are quite familiar with the Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter system. They use it in the course to prototype and validate their controllers and connect the theory to real-world.

Within a series of lab modules, students are tasked to design roll, pitch and yaw controllers for the 3 DOF Helicopter using various techniques, including root loci, Bode plots, LQR, LQG and dynamic output feedback. At the design and simulation stage, students work in the LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation Module and LabVIEW MathScript RT Module environments. With the 3D visualization of the 3 DOF Helicopter provided, students can easily compare the simulation and the actual physical system.

To test the performance of designed controllers on an actual physical system, students use the Quanser-NI platform, combining Quanser higly nonlinear 3 DOF Helicopter with NI hardware (CompactRIO) and software  tools (LabVIEW FPGA and LabVIEW Real-Time modules). This solution significantly reduces setup time, simplifying connections and testing process so that the lab time can be used for teaching and learning rather than hardware testing. But see it for yourself:

The Quanser-NI platform used at MIT proved not only effective for validating control theory and designed methods, it also helped increase students engagement and interest. As Professor Jonathan How says in the article for National Instruments website,  "...numerous students spent extra time to participate in our optional competition, in which the helicopter is to autonomously traverse a virtual obstacle course. Since the completion of the term, several students have independently contacted the course staff due to increased interest in applying LabVIEW to other projects at MIT."
Read more about Professor How's experience with the Quanser-NI platform.

How Researchers Around the World Are Using Quanser 3 DOF Hover

Quanser’s 3DOF Hover system has been serving the needs of researchers and educators in controls labs for many years. It is an economical and reliable hardware-in-the-loop test bed for the study of behavior of vertical lift-off vehicles in the lab, without actually flying.  

Here’s how some researchers are putting the Quanser 3 DOF Hover system to work.

Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica (ITA), Brazil:  Fault-Tolerant Control Research

Professor Roberto Kawakami leads the Fault-Tolerant Research Group in ITA’s Electronic Engineering Department. His research team’s main focus is the fault-tolerant control. In this context, they have investigated both passive and active approaches.

In a passive approach, the controller is designed to be robust to the effect of faults, whereas in an active approach, the controller is reconfigured by using information provided by a fault detection and isolation module. More specifically, their research has involved the use of robust and model predictive control techniques. As an example, they recently employed the Quanser 3 DOF Hover system to evaluate robust controllers designed by using an H∞ loop shaping method. The results were reported at the 2013 Asian Control Conference.

For most of their research activities in this area, Professor Kawakami’s group has used Quanser’s 3 DOF Hover and 3 DOF Helicopter systems with Quanser’s QUARC® rapid control prototyping software. They chose to work with Quanser systems because of their simplicity, speed and efficiency. Using Quanser products allow them to focus their efforts on the design of innovative control laws, with minimal time spent on low-level hardware and software issues. They find Quanser’s customer support is very good and the equipment has proven itself to be reliable after several years of operation.

 Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain: LQR and MPC Control
The following is a video produced by Gonzalo Torro Ferri, then of the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain, showing a linear quadratic regulator and model-predictive controller designed to command the pitch, roll and yaw angles of the 3 DOF Hover system.

Quanser-NI Platform for Controls Demonstrated at NIDays Boston, November 5

We would like to invite you to join Quanser at the inaugural NIDays 2013 in Boston on November 5.

The full-featured technical conference is designed for research and academic engineers interested in aerospace and defense applications. It gives you an opportunity to learn about the latest technologies, best practices and trends for designing test, measurement and embedded systems.

See the unique Quanser-NI platform for controls education and research in action.
Stop by the Quanser booth 105 to see live demonstrations of systems using Quanser and NI hardware and software tools and learn how you can reduce the time required to design and prototype controllers and greatly simplify the hardware implementation. We are looking forward to seeing you in Boston.

Register today to secure your spot!

Quanser-NI Seminar at Georgia Tech Introduces a Unique Platform for Controls Education & Research

On Thursday, November 14, Quanser and NI bring their unique platform for controls education and research to Georgia Tech.

In the seminar titled "A comprehensive hardware and software framework for modern control systems research and education" Quanser and NI engineers offer a detailed introduction to the new hardware and software platform designed by Quanser and NI to:

• offer a smoother and more efficient process for a broad range of control system applications in research and education,
• reduce the time required to design and prototype controllers and greatly simplify the hardware implementation,
• bring an integrated workflow to the engineering labs: from modelling to analysis, controller design, high performance data I/O and real time control, plant systems, and end-user software environments,
• cover the entire academic usage spectrum: from undergraduate teaching labs for introductory control through to advanced courses and graduate courses, and ultimately to a broad range of research application.

Collectively, the companies' pooled portfolio of products is emerging as a more efficient and effective option over the traditional multi-vendor platforms. This seminar will provide concrete information, case studies, and demonstrations on how such an integrated approach to control systems can improve research and teaching.

Seminar program:
11:00 AM - Harmonizing the disconnect: the vision and goals of the Quanser-NI platform.
Presenter: Dr. Tom Lee, Chief Education Officer, Quanser

11:30 AM - The development process for a complex UAV application focusing on the new NI myRIO embedded platform.
Presenter: Paul Karam, Director of Engineering, Quanser

12:00 PM  - Complimentary lunch

12:30 PM - Accelerating controller design and prototyping in LabVIEW for principal areas of control research and education.
Presenter: Dan Nelson, Marketing Engineer, Controls, NI

1:00 PM - Developing complex controllers using LabVIEW and Quanser RCP Toolkit - detailed technical demonstration
Presenter: Amirpasha Javid, Academic Solutions Advisor, Quanser

1:30 PM - Open Discussion and Q&A

Register for the seminar today!

Making Sense out of the "Flipped" Campus: ECEDHA Webinar

The so-called "flipped" campus prescribes that the mechanical details of engineering concepts be learned independently, while the faculty-led classroom experience be focused on synthesis and application of core concepts. In many academic circles, this is generating vigorous debate as we try to reconcile what we are all used to and have been trained to do, with the promised benefits of the flipped world.

Dr. Tom Lee, Quanser's Chief Education Officer explores the concept of "flipped" campus and how it can enhance traditional undergraduate labs and help trigger improvements in education and research in an ECE Webinar on November 12.

Making sense out of the "flipped" campus with new approaches to hands on labs
In his webinar, Dr. Lee will present a case for modern interpretations of the traditional hands-on undergraduate labs which can still offer a great opportunity for engineering schools to efficiently flip their classrooms and trigger improvements in education and potentially even research.

The hands-on lab was, from the outset, an effort to introduce concept synthesis into the curriculum and it is the place where theory meets reality and practical insights emerge from the foundational theoretical knowledge. In essence, this is what the flipped classroom promises to do. The key difference, today, is that the flipped strategy inherently takes advantage of modern technology and media frameworks and if we are not careful, even the best among the traditional labs will become stale and ineffective. Dr. Lee will present new techniques emerging from institutions and industry that are enriching the modern concept of the lab and additionally, make these labs of the near future, a vibrant dimension of the flipped campus. He will discuss some of the techniques, including bonding strong industrially-relevant concepts to undergrad labs; frameworks for off-campus hands-on labs; and the role of mathematics and modelling in an enriched lab experience and illustrate them with case studies.

Quanser is proud to partner with Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) to launch the association's new ECE Webinar series with an event on November 12.

Click here to register for the webinar.

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.

Quanser Hexapod Helps in Development of a Seismic Isolator at BarcelonaTech

A research group at The Polytechnic University of Catalonia's (also known as BarcelonaTech) Control, Dynamics and Applications Lab (CoDAlab) led by Dr. Francesc Pozo works on a system that can help better protect buildings and infrastructure from earthquakes. The roll-n-cage (RNC) anti-vibration device placed between the building and the ground can reduce motion induced in buildings and bridges by earthquakes or other vibration sources. To model the RNC device, Dr. Pozo and his group uses Quanser Hexapod. Watch this video from their lab:

In this application, the researchers attached a force-torque sensor to the upper plate of the Hexapod. The sensor measures the force and torque of the ball placed on the sliding surface. The group developed two control algorithms to control the position of the ball and place it in the middle of the platform as quickly as possible: a standard PID control and a fuzzy-logic control.

"I consider Quanser as one of the leading companies in the field of design and manufacture of systems to help instructors to teach," says Dr. Pozo, "but these devices can also be used to test control algorithms." His research group is using several other Quanser devices, such as Shake Table II to generate a horizontal motion to modeland identify a MR damper attached to the Shake Table surface.

To learn more how Quanser platforms can help you validate your control research, download this whitepaper.