Carlos A. Jara

Real-time collaboration of virtual laboratories through the Internet

Web-based learning environments are becoming increasingly popular in higher education. One of the most important web-learning resources is the virtual laboratory (VL), which gives students an easy way for training and learning through the Internet. Moreover, on-line collaborative communication represents a practical method to transmit the knowledge and experience from the teacher to students overcoming physical distance and isolation. Considering these facts, the authors of this document have developed a new dynamic collaborative e-learning system which combines the main advantages of virtual laboratories and collaborative learning practices. In this system, the virtual laboratories are based on Java applets which have embedded simulations developed in Easy Java Simulations (EJS), an open-source tool for teachers who do not need complex programming skills. The collaborative e-learning is based on a real-time synchronized communication among these Java applets. Therefore, this original approach provides a new tool which integrates virtual laboratories inside a synchronous collaborative e-learning framework. This paper describes the main features of this system and its successful application in a distance education environment among different universities from Spain.

Providing Collaborative Support to Virtual and Remote Laboratories

Virtual and remote laboratories (VRLs) are e-learning resources that enhance the accessibility of experimental setups providing a distance teaching framework which meets the students hands-on learning needs. In addition, online collaborative communication represents a practical and a constructivist method to transmit the knowledge and experience from the teacher to students, overcoming physical distance and isolation. This paper describes the extension of two open source tools: (1) the learning management system Moodle, and (2) the tool to create VRLs Easy Java Simulations (EJS). Our extension provides: (1) synchronous collaborative support to any VRL developed with EJS (i.e., any existing VRL written in EJS can be automatically converted into a collaborative lab with no cost), and (2) support to deploy synchronous collaborative VRLs into Moodle. Using our approach students and/or teachers can invite other users enrolled in a Moodle course to a real-time collaborative experimental session, sharing and/or supervising experiences at the same time they practice and explore experiments using VRLs.

Synchronous collaboration of virtual and remote laboratories

Virtual and remote laboratories(VRLs) are e‐learning resources which enhance the accessibility of experimental setups providing a distance teaching framework which meets the students hands‐on learning needs. In addition, online collaborative communication represents a practical and a constructivist method to transmit the knowledge and experience from the teacher to students, overcoming physical distance and isolation. Thus, the integration of learning environments in the form of VRLs inside collaborative learning spaces is strongly desired. Considering these facts, the authors of this document present an original approach which enables user to share practical experiences while they work collaboratively through the Internet. This practical experimentation is based on VRLs, which have been integrated inside a synchronous collaborative e‐learning framework. This article describes the main features of this system and its successful application for science and engineering subjects.

A survey on FPGA-based sensor systems: towards intelligent and reconfigurable low-power sensors for computer vision, control and signal processing.

The current trend in the evolution of sensor systems seeks ways to provide more accuracy and resolution, while at the same time decreasing the size and power consumption. The use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) provides specific reprogrammable hardware technology that can be properly exploited to obtain a reconfigurable sensor system. This adaptation capability enables the implementation of complex applications using the partial reconfigurability at a very low-power consumption. For highly demanding tasks FPGAs have been favored due to the high efficiency provided by their architectural flexibility (parallelism, on-chip memory, etc.), reconfigurability and superb performance in the development of algorithms. FPGAs have improved the performance of sensor systems and have triggered a clear increase in their use in new fields of application. A new generation of smarter, reconfigurable and lower power consumption sensors is being developed in Spain based on FPGAs. In this paper, a review of these developments is presented, describing as well the FPGA technologies employed by the different research groups and providing an overview of future research within this field.

Control framework for dexterous manipulation using dynamic visual servoing and tactile sensors’ feedback

Tactile sensors play an important role in robotics manipulation to perform dexterous and complex tasks. This paper presents a novel control framework to perform dexterous manipulation with multi-fingered robotic hands using feedback data from tactile and visual sensors. This control framework permits the definition of new visual controllers which allow the path tracking of the object motion taking into account both the dynamics model of the robot hand and the grasping force of the fingertips under a hybrid control scheme. In addition, the proposed general method employs optimal control to obtain the desired behaviour in the joint space of the fingers based on an indicated cost function which determines how the control effort is distributed over the joints of the robotic hand. Finally, authors show experimental verifications on a real robotic manipulation system for some of the controllers derived from the control framework.

EJS+EjsRL: An interactive tool for industrial robots simulation, Computer Vision and remote operation

This paper presents an interactive Java software platform which enables users to easily create advanced robotic applications together with Computer Vision processing. This novel tool is composed of two layers: (1) Easy Java Simulations (EJS), an open-source tool which provides support for creating applications with a full 2D/3D interactive graphical interface, and (2) EjsRL, a high-level Java library specifically designed for EJS which provides a complete functional framework for modeling and simulation of arbitrary serial-link manipulators, Computer Vision algorithms and remote operation. The combination of both components sets up a software architecture which contains a high number of functionalities in the same platform to develop complex simulations in Robotics and Computer Vision fields. In addition, the paper shows its successful application to virtual and remote laboratories, web-based resources that enhance the accessibility of experimental setups for education and research.

Virtual and remote laboratory for robotics e-learning

Supported by the Spanish Government through FPI grants program and research project DPI2005-06222.

Java software platform for the development of advanced robotic virtual laboratories

This article presents an interactive Java software platform which enables any user to easily create advanced virtual laboratories (VLs) for Robotics. This novel tool provides both support for developing applications with full 3D interactive graphical interface and a complete functional framework for modelling and simulation of arbitrary serial‐link manipulators. In addition, its software architecture contains a high number of functionalities included as high‐level tools, with the advantage of allowing any user to easily develop complex interactive robotic simulations with a minimum of programming. In order to show the features of the platform, the article describes, step‐by‐step, the implementation methodology of a complete VL for Robotics education using the presented approach. Finally, some educational results about the experience of implementing this approach are reported.

Modelling and simulation of a multi-fingered robotic hand for grasping tasks

This paper develops the kinematic, dynamic and contact models of a three-fingered robotic hand (BarrettHand) in order to obtain a complete description of the system which is required for manipulation tasks. These models do not only take into account the mechanical coupling and the breakaway mechanism of the under-actuated robotic hand but they also obtain the force transmission from the hand to objects, which are represented as triangle meshes. The developed models have been implemented on a software simulator based on the Easy Java Simulations platform. Several experiments have been performed in order to verify the accuracy of the proposed models with regard to the real physic system.

Docencia en Automática: Aplicación de las TIC a la realización de actividades prácticas a través de Internet

Este trabajo ha sido realizado parcialmente con fondos de la CICYT mediante contrato DPI2007-61068. El sistema del brazo robotico ha sido realizado en el Grupo de Innovacion Educativa en Automatica de la Universidad de Alicante (GITE-UA) y en el marco del proyecto de investigacion DPI2008-02647.