Stevan Stankovski

Remote control of laboratory equipment for basic electronics courses: A LabVIEW-based implementation

This article describes a LabVIEW‐based implementation of remote control of laboratory equipment for basic Electronics courses. Remote control of laboratory equipment is demonstrated on an example of recording the amplitude characteristics of a T‐notch filter. Overview of traditional, virtual, and remote laboratory features is given, too. Real laboratory setup is presented, including hardware and software components and virtual instruments, as well as solutions for remote laboratory access. Finally, the way of putting the laboratory online and the course of the experiment are shown.

RFID technology in product/part tracking during the whole life cycle

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a new way for identification of products/parts and their tracking during the whole life cycle, from the manufacture and assembly phase to the disassembly phase.Design/methodology/approach – Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is applied on a chosen product, an in‐mould labelling (IML) robot.Findings – This paper discusses a case study that highlights the use of RFID as automatic identification technology, especially in the processes of assembly/disassembly of the IML robot. The application can be expanded onto any kind of product, with the exception of some life cycle phases that are specific for a particular product.Practical implications – The paper gives an example of how RFID technology can actually be realized in the case of the IML robot to improve the quality of tracking its main components.Originality/value – The users have the possibilities to access and analyze information about the products/parts during their cycle.

Method of evaluating the impact of ERP implementation critical success factors – a case study in oil and gas industries

The so far implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have in many cases failed to meet the requirements regarding the business process control, decrease of business costs and increase of company profit margin. Therefore, there is a real need for an evaluation of the influence of ERP on the companys performance indicators. Proposed in this article is an advanced model for the evaluation of the success of ERP implementation on organisational and operational performance indicators in oil–gas companies. The recommended method establishes a correlation between a process-based method, a scorecard model and ERP critical success factors. The method was verified and tested on two case studies in oil–gas companies using the following procedure: the model was developed, tested and implemented in a pilot gas–oil company, while the results were implemented and verified in another gas–oil company.

Implementation of RFID Technology in Parking Lot Access Control System

Parking plays an important role in the traffic system since all vehicles require a storage location when they are not being used to transport passengers. Whether it is a parking lot or on-street parking there is a problem of parking revenue convenience. Implementation of the RFID technology could be a good solution for this problem.

Using a Didactic Manipulator in Mechatronics and Industrial Engineering Courses

One of the most difficult and most important engineering tasks is the integration of a robot-manipulator into material handling, assembly, and production processes, offering the possibility of supervision and control. The knowledge and skills required for these kinds of tasks are purely mechatronic and, thus, multidisciplinary. This paper describes a didactic manipulator, MRA-M01, designed and produced in a mechatronics laboratory of the Faculty of Technical Sciences Novi Sad, Republic of Serbia. This manipulator serves as part of the laboratory equipment used by students enrolled in courses in the Departments of Mechatronics and Industrial Engineering. The manipulator was created to enable students to gain practical knowledge of the integration of diverse engineering fields, including electro-pneumatics, sensors, actuators, programmable logic controllers (PLC), field bus systems, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, material handling, industrial engineering, and intelligent control systems. The manipulator MRA-M01 is a three-degrees-of-freedom manipulator, with three linear actuators. Two of those are pneumatic (one controlled in a standard way by a control valve, and the other using servo-pneumatics), and one is electromechanical (with a dc motor). This manipulator supports hands-on activities in class by assisting students in material-handling tasks, which involve them learning about the structure of the manipulator and its components. Through this learning process, students are able to evaluate the use of different methods of manipulator design. One of the most important learning gains is that of understanding manipulator implementation by working through different scenarios that simulate industrial tasks and conditions.

Dairy cow monitoring by RFID

Dairy cows identification and monitoring on small cattle farms are usually based on the utilization of barcode technology. This kind of identification technology is unsuitable for dairy cows milking and feeding process automation. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is a better solution in this case. This paper describes the research and implementation of the milking cycle´s automated monitoring with the use of RFID tags conducted on a small cattle farm in the Republic of Serbia. This solution is based on RFID system which consists of two parts. First part includes control box, two Ultra High Frequency (UHF) RFID readers operating at frequency of 915 MHz and RFID tags glued onto the dairy cow ear labels. Second part includes software modules for acquisition and collecting data from RFID tags to build up an archive due to supervision and analysis of the milking cycle. Reading accuracy of RFID system in the observed period was 99.8 % in average. A group of dairy cows having a settled milking cycle within an interval of 12h ± 5 % had a 1.5 % better yield and a 0.08 better quality in comparison with a group of dairy cows having a milking cycle variance higher than 20 %. RFID system implemented in described way can be easily integrated into a new or existing farm management system in order to have better production results which depend on several factors including settled milking cycles.

Experiences in developing labs for a supervisory control and data acquisition course for undergraduate Mechatronics education

This paper describes the course Systems for Supervision and Process Visualization that is conducted at the undergraduate studies of Mechatronics at University of Novi Sad, the scope, tasks, labs and hands on activities. In addition, it presents the student evaluation of the course that provided valuable feedback for further improvements.

Collaborative Design in The Assembly Systems

Today companies are specialized for partial technology processes. Hundreds, sometimes even thousands of collaborative processes depend on workers interaction and communication in product assembly and disassembly phase. With intensive coordination during all manufacturing phases of designing of one product and technology documentation are produced, in digital form, on CAx workstation. Product Lifecycle Management can be achieved by using specialized software solutions. Some of the Product Lifecycle Management solutions offer integrated portfolio for engineering design and production of products and services, which enables companies to create their own digital ebusiness projects. In this paper it will be given a representation of the contemporaneously solutions for collaborative design and the example of using solutions in the industry.

Food Product Traceability by Using Automated Identification Technologies

Food product traceability from harvesting, through food processing to the final food product and through the retailer to the end consumer is a significant process that has to ensure food quality and safety. The traceability enables the end consumer to get information from all previous stages of the food product, leading back to the food origin. In this way, the consumer can get more information on the specific product, and thus make a decision on buying the product that suits his needs best. In each stage of the food product transformation, important data are generated for the subsequent chain participants. Every participant should have access to certain data of interest to them. This can be achieved by using automated identification technologies, like RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) and two-dimensional barcode, which allow faster data acquisition, recording and reading processes than the traditional means, and provide up-to-date information in each product stage. Furthermore, these technologies allow the possibility to record large amounts of data for each specific product, and interconnect all the data in a database. This paper discusses the process of providing traceability of food products, recording, transmitting and reading of significant data in specific stages of food product chain, with the application of automated identification technologies, including the possibility of obtaining additional data from a database, according to appropriate access level of each participant in the chain. Advantages and disadvantages of automated identification technologies are discussed, with the proposition for using specific technologies in certain food product stages.

Model driven development of hybrid databases using lightweight metamodel extensions

ABSTRACT The transition from traditional to Big Data technologies has put new challenges in front of existing database modelling techniques. The ‘Design then implement’ approach to relational database modelling, could not be fully applied to ‘Discover and analyze’ databases with rapid data growth. In the context of Big Data, models have preserved a descriptive role: they are used to analyze and understand the architecture of hybrid data structures. From the Model-Driven Engineering point of view, several questions emerge: Could Big Data and hybrid database models represent a formal specification for a solution, which can be transformed to an executable specification for a specific target platform? Does the refining mechanism have its place in the process of hybrid data structure development? An approach to modelling hybrid databases, based on empirically validated concepts of Model-Driven Engineering, is presented in this paper. The approach was applied during the implementation of Precision Agriculture Based Information Service (PAIS) application – a web-based service for the collection and archiving of diverse data on crops, and their presentation to farmers.