Zorica Nedic

Remote laboratory netlab for effective interaction with real equipment over the internet

Remote laboratories (RL) are becoming a common educational environment at a growing number of universities worldwide. However, there are no standards guiding the development of remote laboratories, so each of about 120 currently existing RLs is a unique development. In this paper we do not introduce a standard, but we rather showcase an effective example that has been developed at the University of South Australia (UniSA) and adopted elsewhere, so it may possibly be proposed as a standard graphical user interface (GUI) for effective interaction between users and instruments in remote laboratories.

A remote laboratory for microelectronics fabrication

During the last decade there has been a move towards using remote laboratories in engineering education. These labs allow students to control either electrical or mechanical systems remotely via the internet. At the University of South Australia (UniSA), we have been developing a remote lab that will allow users to visually inspect and test microelectronic circuits under a microscope. In this paper, we describe the architecture of the laboratory and discuss the obstacles that are faced in designing and building a remote laboratory that deals with the accurate manipulation of micro-probes for testing microelectronic circuits. Challenges include mechanical construction of probes, motor control for accurate positioning of probes and the development of a realistic graphical user interface (GUI) which will give students an environment that closely resembles that of a real lab. This laboratory is the extension of the existing, fully functional UniSA remote lab, NetLab, which has already been successfully used in teaching students on-campus as well as off-shore.

Motivational project-based laboratory for a common first year electrical engineering course

Over the past few years many universities worldwide have introduced a common first year for all engineering disciplines. This is despite the opinion of many academics that large classes have negative effects on the learning outcomes of first year students. The University of South Australia is also faced with low motivation amongst engineering students studying non-major courses. In 2006, a project-based laboratory was successfully introduced for first year students enrolled in electrical disciplines, which increased student satisfaction, reduced the attrition rate and improved students’ success rate. This paper presents the experiences with the project-based laboratorys implementation in three different projects in the common first year course, Electrical and Energy Systems, where each project aims to increase the motivation of students in one of three disciplines: electrical, mechanical or civil engineering.

Demonstration of collaborative features of remote laboratory NetLab

In this presentation we would like to demonstrate collaborative aspects the remote laboratory NetLab. Many universities worldwide have developed remote laboratories that are now common part of laboratory component used by their students. NetLab is one of them, and is used by undergraduate students to perform experiments on electrical circuits. Unlike majority of other laboratories NetLab is from the beginning designed as an interactive collaborative environment where a number of students can access the equipment remotely from different places in the world and collaboratively wire circuits, connect and set up instruments and perform measurements. All that are concurrently logged on have full control of the system. Because NetLab is an interactive learning environment students are required to coordinate their actions. Unlike in a real laboratory where students see what everyone is doing, collaboration in remote laboratory is not a trivial task. To enable this collaboration NetLab has a number of features to support interactive collaborative work. In the proposed session these features will be demonstrated.

Final year projects with involvement of industry and high schools

In the final year of undergraduate degree programs in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of South Australia (UniSA), students accomplish hands-on design projects that account for a quarter of the yearpsilas academic credit load. The majority of the projects, depending on a year - between 60% and 80% - are industry sponsored, i.e. industry defines the project specification and provides industry supervisor(s) and resources in cash and/or inkind contributions. This gives students an opportunity to develop links with industry and build up their skills, knowledge and industry-relevant practical experience in a specialised engineering field, facilitating their rapid industrial employment. Recently also high school students have been involved in these projects, as reported in the paper. The program has been successfully running for the past 3 years and proved to bring benefits to high school students, university students and also to companies that participate in the program.

Collaborative Learning Based on a Micro-Webserver Remote Test Controller

This paper presents a remote test workbench that was developed to support on-line assignments dealing with the IEEE 1149.1 standard test access port and boundary-scan architecture. The remote test controller is based on the DS80C400 networked microcontroller from Maxim-Dallas, which offers a very cost-effective solution to the development of micro-webservers enabling low complexity data acquisition and control tasks. All remote experiments are integrated into Moodle in exactly the same way as the remaining courseware that is made available to the students. The use of Moodle facilitates the implementation of collaborative learning activities based on the remote test workbench, and the development of the workbench itself is the subject of a collaborative learning project involving students from the universities of Porto in Portugal and South Australia at Adelaide.

A universal workbench for motion control experimentations in LabVIEW environment

The recent advances in technology have led to the development of a number of laboratories for motion control throughout the world. The increased Internet bandwidth allowed many of them to be used remotely by distant users. The benefit of using a motorised linear stage in the laboratory test bench is that it represents various industrial applications for precise position control. This paper presents a novel comprehensive flexible motion platform that can be a base for remote experimentations with Brushless DC/Permanent Magnet Synchronous motors and drives, single/multiple axes flexible mechanical systems with friction/backlash uncertainties, inverted pendulums, etc. A LabVIEW software environment has been utilised to gain from the advantages of the virtual instrumentation representation and data acquisition capabilities.

Modeling of cognition using EEG: A review and a new approach

Understanding the secrets underlying the brain functioning would be the noble achievement of this era. Learning how brain learns would be the milestone to guide the researchers of artificial intelligence, neurology and psychology. With the advent of “Integrate and Fire” model of neuron proposed about a hundred years ago, the brain research has picked up its pace in the study of different aspects of brain functionality. Many cognitive architectures have been proposed with an aim of simulating and understanding human cognition. On the other hand, many technologies have emerged that can measure the parameters of the brain activity. Among them, Electroencephalogram (EEG) stands as a reliable tool in the study of brain functioning. Simplified wireless EEGs are readily available now which can send data recorded by its electrodes to a computer for further processing. We have chosen this tool to detect different aspects of cognition and to predict the brain functioning behind it. A lot of studies from the past two decades have already revealed varying EEG patterns related to cognition. In this paper, we have proposed to extract different features from visual, tactile, auditory and psychomotor stimuli to work on different cognitive aspects such as memory, emotion, arousal, fatigue and distraction and to investigate its affect on the EEG. A methodology to model cognitive functions by relating the varying event related potential, brain waves, spectral density and latency in EEG outcomes are then related with the stimuli features to predict the cognitive state of mind.

Enhancement of an insular power system in the outback of South Australia

The outback of Australia is characterised by its remoteness from traditional electrical energy supplies and vast distances between inhabited areas which impede supply of commodities. Insular power systems are typical solutions for such localities, usually consisting of a generator energised by diesel fuel or liquefied petroleum gas. In this paper an enhanced, hybrid system is considered by adding solar energy to the existing energy generating installation, and reliability, economics and the environmental aspect of the proposed solution, are considered.

LabVIEW based remote laboratory for advanced motion control

Remote laboratories for motion control are valuable tools for teaching mechatronics students since they represent various industrial applications. Applications of advanced control algorithms in remote laboratories are rarely described in literature. Their real time implementation in FPGA environment is a complex and time-consuming task. This paper describes the National Instruments LabVIEW utilisation in such a remote laboratory, where H-infinity control algorithms are successfully implemented. Its main focus is on the functionality of the remote application and its graphical user interface.