Online Engineering & Internet of Things

The paper presents the concept and implementation for Cloud-based Industrial Control Services (CICS) as a next generation PLC. As a distributed service-oriented control system in the cloud, a CICS controller can replace the traditional PLC for applications with uncritical timing in terms of Industry 4.0. The CICS services are programmed to industry standards, pursuant to standard IEC 61131-3, and executed in a CICS runtime in the cloud. This paper gives an overview about the concept and implementation, discusses the results of application examples as well as the evaluation of the operability of a CICS controller.

Nowadays, Wireless applications are widely extended in the Scientific, Education and Hobbyist communities. The aim of this paper is to provide a review of some of the most popular boards which allow an ease way to develop a wide range of applications related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in an educational manner. Moreover, the scope is focused on those development boards which allow Wireless communications in order to perform Things which can be integrated into an Internet of Things environment. Arduino WiFi Shield, Arduino Yún Shield, Arduino MKR1000, NodeMCU ESP8266 and Onion Omega have been analyzed, compared and discussed. The analysis has been carried out attending on the Built-in Hardware, the Programmer Interface, the connection possibilities and the Developer Community which is behind the corresponding board.

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs), an advancing technology in the field of pervasive healthcare monitor patients ubiquitously and provide real-time feedback. Data communication consumes more energy than data processing in WBANs. As it is nearly impractical to replace or recharge the dead sensor nodes, it has become a major concern to overcome issues related to data communication in WBANs that affect network lifetime and energy consumption. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm for cluster head selection using genetic heuristics for enhancing network lifetime and harnessing energy consumption of the sensor nodes. It uses genetic heuristics and divides the network into clusters. A cluster head is chosen for inter and intra-cluster communication. Clustering is a feasible solution as it reduces the number of direct transmissions from source to sink. It enhances network lifetime and reduces energy consumption as there is inverse relationship between the two, i.e, less the energy consumption more is the network lifetime. The proposed algorithm is also analyzed mathematically in terms of time complexity, overhead and fault tolerance which reveals that our algorithm outperforms the existing techniques such as AnyBody and HIT in terms of energy efficiency and network lifetime.

Technology is present in different sectors of society, a world mediated by information and communication technologies, can offer for people with special needs the possibility of improving the limitations imposed by their physiological condition. Today the Internet of Things (IoT) is the emerging technology that can provide people with special needs the support to achieve a better quality of life. It is in this context that the proposal of an IoT architecture with indoor and outdoor scenarios connected to Assistive Technologies (AT).

It is generally agreed in literature that manufacturers are starting to monitor energy consumption in some capacity, whether at site level or down to specific processes and production lines. This monitoring is a prerequisite for energy saving since it enables companies to make operational changes to reduce energy consumption and costs. The main challenge to energy monitoring is the need to integrate manufacturing, and energy monitoring and control devices that support different communication protocols and are usually distributed over a wide area. This paper describes how the new networking paradigm of Industrial Internet of Things is used to show the effects of PID tuning on energy efficiency. Moreover, the paper describes how process and energy system data is transferred from devices using Open Platform Communication (OPC) technology over Ethernet to business applications such as Microsoft Excel. Finally, the paper describes how Microsoft Excel can be used to integrate process energy data with utilities’ electricity pricing information in real-time to help plant managers to make decisions on when and how to run manufacturing processes so as to optimize energy use.

Reducing energy demand in the residential sector is an important problem worldwide. This study is focused on the awareness of residents to energy conservation, potential of reducing energy and the implementation of a solution in the field of Intelligent House. This paper presents a newly designed integrated wireless modular monitoring system that supports real-time data acquisition from multiple wireless sensing units.

Master of Engineering Programs are often designed to provide skills that can be readily used in industry. Although many M.Eng. Programs include courses that can be selected from an existing pool of traditional engineering topics to fulfill various specializations, this paper describes the development of new M.Eng. Programs designed to include courses that address the new trends in industry. This paper presents the design and implementation of new M.Eng. Programs that focus on modern approaches in manufacturing; namely Industry 4.0 and Smart Systems. The integration of these new M.Eng. Programs with related undergraduate programs are also described, as is the potential to provide certain students with an accelerated pathway to professional licensure. Several common elements of Industry 4.0 trends are contained within these new programs. These elements include cyber-physical systems, internet of things, and development of smart systems. This paper presents the development of three M.Eng. Programs: Automotive, Automation, and Advanced Manufacturing. These programs focus on real-world problems of industries in which progress is fast and in which specialists need to provide constantly evolving, creative, and innovative solutions. Being designed for both to full-time students and part time students from industry, the courses developed for these programs are offered in the evening. Students can chose between a coure-and-project option that includes 6 courses and a project and a course-only option that include eight course. The graduates of these programs are expected to have a strong technical grounding with broad management and industry perspectives combined with strong nontechnical areas of expertise.

The concept of smart cities comprises a wide range of control and actuators systems aimed to improve the habitability and perception that citizens have of cities. A smart city covers many of these systems, ranging from applications that facilitate the governance of cities and encourage citizens’ participation to services focused on improving their quality of life. Among them, we can highlight those using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to improve the environment of the city. Besides deploying air quality monitoring systems, smart cities are beginning to include other ICT-based systems, such as the work in progress proposed in this paper, which is aimed to remotely monitor noise levels at different points of the city using the public bus system as mobile sensors network.

More and more functionality that demands remote access on a vehicle is integrated into modern cars. Fleet management, infotainment, updates-over-the-air and the upcoming functionality for autonomous driving need gateways that enable a car-2-x communication. Misuse is a threat. Consequently, security mechanisms play an increasing important role. But how can we show and prove the effectiveness of these security functions? Therefore, in this paper we will show an approach to test security aspects, based on virtual instrumentation. The approach is to use a framework that executes the application under development on a virtual model of the target micro controller. An interception library generates scenarios systematically, whereas the effects on registers and memory are monitored. We are intercepting the running software at vulnerable functions and variables to detect potential malfunctions. This will detect security vulnerabilities of all internal failure even if no malicious behavior at the interfaces occur.

This paper aims to describe the LABCONM, that is an educational laboratory that provides remote access to one remote educational compression testing machine (MDTEC). This laboratory was developed specifically to help in the teaching/learning process of metal flow curves in the metal forming area. Two different types of analysis were defined to validate the laboratory, where the first one considerate the teaching approach and the second one the operation of the laboratory. In the technical analysis, the researchers conducted 20 remotely operated tests, where it was verified the quality and repeatability of the data to demonstrate metal flow. The data shown sufficient quality and repeatability, so that the MDTEC could be used as an educational experiment. In the pedagogical analysis, two classes, which were attending Metal Forming Course, participated. In the group that did not access the LABCONM, 17% of students had unsatisfactory result in the mathematical question. In the group that accessed to the LABCONM, 100% of the students had satisfactory or excellent result in the same question. Consequently, it was possible to conclude that there is an influence of laboratory especially for those students who have more difficulties in theoretical learning.

The lack of efficient and reliable proctoring for tests, examinations and laboratory exercises is slowing down the adoption of distance education. At present, the most popular solution is to arrange for proctors to supervise the students through a surveillance camera system. This method exhibits two shortcomings. The cost for setting up the surveillance system is high and the proctoring process is laborious and tedious. In order to overcome these shortcomings, some proctoring software that identifies and monitors student behavior during educational activities has been developed. However, these software solutions exhibit certain limitations: (i) They impose more severe restrictions on the students than a human proctor would. The students have to sit upright and remain directly in front of their webcams at all times. (ii) The reliability of these software systems highly depends on the initial conditions under which the educational activity is started. For example, changes in the lighting conditions can cause erroneous results.In order to improve the usability and to overcome the shortcomings of the existing remote proctoring methods, a virtual proctor (VP) with biometric authentication and facial tracking functionality is proposed here. In this paper, a two-stage approach (facial detection and facial recognition) for designing the VP is introduced. Then, an innovative method to crop out the face region from images based on facial detection is presented. After that, in order to render the usage of the VP more comfortable to the students, in addition to an eigenface-based facial recognition algorithm, a modified facial recognition method based on a real-time stereo matching algorithm is employed to track the students’ movements. Then, the VP identifies suspicious student behaviors that may represent cheating attempts. By employing a combination of eigenface-based facial recognition and real-time stereo matching, the students can move forward, backward, left, right and can rotate their head in a larger range. In addition, the modified algorithm used here is reliable to changes of lighting, thus decreasing the possibility of false identification of suspicious behaviors.

The spread of remote labs in Universities is a current reality. They are strong e-learning tool which allow students to carry out online experiments over real equipment and Universities to have e-learning tools for learning methodologies such as Blended learning and Distance learning. These remote labs are developed for many science fields such as electronic, robotic and physic. Nevertheless it is very difficult to find chemistry remote labs. This paper wants to show the difficulties of choosing a chemistry lab which can become a remote chemistry lab, and a first approach of converting a hands-on chemistry lab to remote one.

We present the design and implementation of a novel cybersecurity architecture for a Linux community public cloud supporting education and research. The approach combines first packet authentication and transport layer access control gateways to block fingerprinting of key network resources. Experimental results are presented for two interconnected data centers in New York. We show that this approach can block denial of service attacks and network scanners, and provide geolocation attribution based on a syslog classifier.

In this paper, a remote laboratory for learning the basic principles of pneumatic control and realizing pneumatic control schemes is described. Goal is to develop a remote system for our laboratory through which remote participants (students, engineers, etc.) would be able to learn some basic principles of pneumatic control. The first stage of developing a unique complex pneumatic scheme with which several smaller, simpler tasks can be realized, as well as a user interface for the remote laboratory are shown.

Remote laboratory is an important and rapidly growing component of distance learning systems for engineering specialty. The labs allow for remote users to enter the data of technical experiment that is transmitted to the server where it is converted into control signals of physical and (or) virtual model of the object of the experiment. The level of remote laboratories in engineering education largely depends on the level of models of objects of study that they use. The use of physical models in remote laboratories has identified a number of issues for the creators and operators: they have a limited range of experiments with the physical model, the complexity of modernization and the high cost of new models, and others. The aim of the present work: to improve, to extend the scope of existing physical models. The goal is to be achieved through increase/add functionality of the physical models through the use of augmented reality, augmented virtuality and augmented behavior of the object of study. The work describes the variety and the advantages of hybrid models and interfaces to enhance the functionality, lists examples of added functionality.

Project ELLI (Excellent Teaching and Learning in Engineering Science) is a joint project of the three German universities RWTH Aachen, TU Dortmund University and Ruhr-University Bochum. Considering teachers’ and learners’ perspectives, the project aims to improve existing concepts in higher engineering education and to develop new innovative approaches. In the past years, a pool of remote and virtual labs has been developed and set up in order to gain flexibility in the usage of experimental equipment in different pre-set scenarios. Teachers can either use these virtual and remote laboratories in class for demonstrating engineering practice whereas the labs can support students to individually discover scientific concepts.

The ability to integrate multiple learning applications from different organizations allows sharing resources and reducing costs in the deployment of learning systems. In this sense, Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) is the main current leading technology for integrating learning applications with platforms like Learning Management Systems (LMS). On the other hand, the integration of learning applications also benefits from data collection, which allows learning systems to implement Learning Analytics (LA) processes. Tin Can API is a specification for learning technology that makes this possible. Both learning technologies, LTI and Tin Can API, are supported by nowadays LMS, either natively or through plugins. However, there is no seamless integration between these two technologies in order to provide learning systems with experience data from remotely hosted learning applications. Our proposal defines a learning system architecture ready to apply advanced LA techniques on experience data collected from remotely hosted learning applications through a seamless integration between LTI and Tin Can API. In order to validate our proposal, we have implemented a LRS proxy plug-in in Moodle that stores learning records in a SCORM Cloud LRS service, and a basic online lab based on Easy JavaScript Simulation (EjsS). Moreover, we have tested our implementation using resources located in three European universities.

The paper describes a new remote experiment in REMLABNET - “Remote Wave Laboratory” constructed on the ISES (Internet School Experimental System). The remote experiment contributes to understanding of concepts of harmonic waves, their parameters (amplitude, frequency and period, and phase velocity) and dependence of the instantaneous phase on time and path covered. Also it serves for the measurements and understanding of the concept of the phase sensitive interference and the superposition of parallel/perpendicular waves.

This paper discusses the physical implementation of lab experiments that are designed to be accessed from any web-browser using clientless remote desktop gateway apache guacamole with the support of remote desktop protocol. Which also facilitates live streaming of the experiments using axis cgi api, online slot booking for students to book their respective sessions and apache Cassandra database for users details storage. Here, we shall address all aspects related to the system architecture and infrastructure needed to establish a Real time Remote access system for a given machine (in this case being electric machines - which otherwise could be extended to any machine). This is being built to evaluate the system feasibility to implement a complete machine health monitoring system with remote monitoring and control capability, though the current implementation is aimed at students being able to perform the experiments related to machines lab.

Laboratory experimentation is essential in any educational field. Existing software allows two options for performing experiments: (1) Interacting with the graphic user interface (it is intuitive and close to reality, but it has certain constraints that cannot be easily solved), or (2) scripting algorithms (it allows more complex instructions, however, users have to handle a programming language). This paper presents the definition and implementation of a generic experimentation language for conducting automatic experiments on existing online laboratories. The main objective is to use an existing online lab, created independently, as a tool in which users can perform tailored experiments. To achieve it, authors present the Experiment Application. Not only unifies the two conceptions of performing experiments; it also allows the user to define algorithms for interactive laboratories in a simple way without the disadvantages of the traditional programming languages. It is composed by Blockly, to define and design the experiments, and Google Chart, to analyze and visualize the experiment results. This tool offers benefits to students, teachers and, even, lab designers. For the moment, it can be used with any existing lab or simulation created with the authoring tool Easy Java(script) Simulations. Since there are hundreds of labs created with this tool, the potential applicability of the tool is considerable. To illustrate its utility a very well-known system is used: the water tank system.

In this paper we design a set of awareness and reflection tools aiming at engaging learners in the deep learning process during a practical activity carried out through a virtual and remote laboratory. These tools include: (i) a social awareness tool revealing to learners their current and general levels of performance, but also enabling the comparison between their own and their peers’ performance; (ii) a reflection-on-action tool, implemented as timelines, allowing learners to deeply analyze both their own completed work and the tasks achieved by peers; (iii) a reflection-in-action tool acting as a live video player to let users easily see what others are doing. An experimentation involving 80 students was conducted in an authentic learning setting about operating system administration; the participants evaluated the system only slightly higher than traditional computational environments when it comes to leverage reflection and critical thinking, even if they evaluated the system as good in terms of usability.

All data are important and useful but what is more important is the way this data is used. Wi-Fi Data-logger is a major step towards making use of data for effective management of a remote lab. The purpose is to build a real-time data-logger with Wi-Fi capabilities to remotely monitor the equipment status and environmental conditions inside a remote lab containing high-end electrical and electronic machinery. This device should be adaptive, flexible, easy to use and should give deterministic results to take action.The structure of Wi-Fi data logger consists of two zones: (a) device-level-hardware zone and (b) server-level-software zone.(a)A micro-controller is connected to various sensors such as Temperature, Humidity, Gas, motion sensors and to fault testing lines of the equipment and peripherals. The data is continuously obtained in real time is pumped through Wi-Fi over TCP/IP or UDP protocols to a server computer.(b)It consists of a simple program running on the server computer to receive the data from micro-controller through Wi-Fi and organize it. This program also has a script running which throws up possible a warning in case of malfunctioning and possible solution with step-wise instructions is displayed.Key Outcomes include: (a) Seamless integration of the device with the existing machinery requiring minimal effort (b) Protection to components (c) Over 40% reduction in the time required to detect and fix an issue achieved by impeccable synchronous effort of device and software.Thus, these Wi-Fi data-loggers enhance the way remote labs operate by taking care of safety issues and increasing the stability of the whole remote labs architecture. This technology can pave way for more complex architecture of remote labs and the evolution of Wi-Fi data-logger technology will result in evolution of remote labs.

This work proposes the idea of flipping the remote lab. A flipped remote lab would consist on requesting students to build a remotely accessible experiment, so that teachers would test the lab in order to evaluate it, instead of creating it themselves. Building a remote lab is a multidisciplinary activity that involves using different skills and which promotes long-life learning and creativity. Also, by assigning this task to work in groups, students would also build up abilities such as teamwork, communication and leadership. Because creating a remote lab is a complex task, the idea is to use the experience acquired during many years of development and use of virtual and remote labs for teaching engineering and physics, to simplify the process and make it manageable for students. Given the current state of the technology, providing students with some guidelines and reference designs should be enough to make feasible for them to develop a remote experiment.

In this paper we present a solution for highly scalable online laboratories at low cost. The Massively Scalable Online Laboratories (MSOL) is an online platform that enables the virtualization of real experiments in a fashion that very closely mimics a physical experiment. Moreover, it includes social features to enable peer-to-peer learning and facilitates the creation of an online community. To add an experiment to the MSOL platform, an existing setup is automatically turned into a data set, accessible through data base queries. In this way, MSOL provides an effective and scalable solution to add an important element to current online education systems at low costs. The MSOL platform might also accompany scientific and engineering papers to add another domain to disseminate qualitative and quantitative data.

The growth in remote education through technologies such as Remote Access Laboratories has progressed to a stage where automated interpretations of visual scenes within a video stream are necessary to provide enhanced learning experiences. Augmented Reality tools are under development to expand the current reach and immersion of remote laboratories. Network capabilities between the experiment host and the client can affect the level of these enhancements. Augmented Reality relies on sensory engagement, which is critically linked to the synchronization between the real-time scenes and the computer-generated enhancements. This work highlights the problems of incorporating Augmented Reality into Remote Access Laboratories, and the methods to improve the level of user immersion.

Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) technology is able to transmit electric power from the Tx side to Rx side without any electrical connection, realizing electrical isolation and breaking through the limitations of electric wires. Traditionally, finding the best working point of the WPT system is difficult as there are a great number of coupled parameters to tune. Besides, the experimenter has to be on site to carry out the experiment with limitations such as time, location, safety issue as well as sharing issue. In this paper, a two-coil structure WPT system is integrated into web-based online laboratory NCSLab using a controller and a DAQ (data acquisition) card as well as an user-defined algorithm. With the latest technologies brought in, NCSLab is completely plug-in free for experimentation on the WPT system. The optimum frequency can be easily obtained by setting the system in the sweep-frequency mode using the remote control platform. The remote control platform NCSLab addresses the safety issue and test rig sharing issue by offering experimenter flexibility to carry out WPT experiment anytime anywhere as long as the Internet is available. T he integration of WPT system into NCSLab also provides teachers with a powerful tool for classroom demonstration of state-of-the-art technology.

The learning of technical and science disciplines requires experimental and practical training. Hands-on labs are the natural scenarios where practical skills can be developed but, thanks to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), virtual and remote labs can provide a framework where Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines can also be developed. One of these remote labs is the Virtual Instruments System in Reality (VISIR), specially designed to practice in the area of analog electronics. This paper aims at describing how this remote lab is being used in the Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco (UNPSJB - Argentina), in the framework of the VISIR+ (“This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein”.) project funded by the Erasmus+ Program, one institution without previous experiences with remote labs.

In 2015, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (DIEEC) of the Spanish University for Distance Education (UNED) in Spain started together with the Santiago del Rosario National University (UNSE, Argentina) and with the support of the Research Institute of Education Sciences of Rosario (IRICE-CONICET, Argentina) under the Coordination of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (IPP, Portugal) the new development and deployment of the VISIR system inside the UNSE University as part of the VISIR+ Project.The main objective of the VISIR+ Project is to extend the current VISIR network in South America, mainly in Argentina and Brazil, with the support and patronage of the European Union Erasmus Plus program inside the Capacity Building program and as part of an excellence network future development integration framework. This extension of VISIR nodes reconfigure in 2016 a new project, PILAR, that as part of the Erasmus Plus projects will allow the Strategic Partnership to develop a new federation umbrella over the existing nodes and network.

This paper proposes and explores an approach in which robotics projects of novice engineering students focus on development of learning robots. We implemented a reinforcement learning scenario in which a humanoid robot learns to lift a weight of unknown mass through autonomous trial-and-error search. To expedite the process, trials of the physical robot are substituted by simulations with its virtual twin. The optimal parameters of the robot posture for executing the weightlifting task, found by analysis of the virtual trials, are transmitted to the robot through internet communication. The approach exposes students to the concepts and technologies of machine learning, parametric design, digital prototyping and simulation, connectivity and internet of things. Pilot implementation of the approach indicates its potential for teaching freshman and HS students, and for teacher education.

This paper describes a didactional system which is aimed at supporting remote experiments in developing software for Embedded Systems. As basis for this system is used the Raspberry Pi which provides a variety of possibilities at low costs. Demo experiments and possibilities for learning software development for embedded systems are described.

As known, Internet today is not only environment of communication and information exchange between people, but it is a tool and technology of interaction between customers, “things” and devices. Therefore, industry wants effectively design, create and deploy modern smart connected products and need the relevant professionals with a wide breath of knowledge and skills from business intelligence, hardware engineering, information security and Internet of Things (IoT). Integration of IoT study into curriculum is an actual task, because gives real possibilities to enhance students’ competitiveness in a rapidly changing labor market.The purpose of this work is realization of practical-oriented approaches and methods in educational process of future IT-professionals based on REIoT complex - Smart House&IoT lab integrated with remote lab RELDES. Complex based on platforms Arduino, Raspberry Pi and OpenHAB. OpenHAB REST API has been used for integration remote lab RELDES with Smart House&IoT lab. This allows get remote access to Smart House&IoT lab experiments and their states as well as status updates or sending of commands for experiments.REIoT complex application in educational process gives students all advantages of remote experiments and possibilities of different IoT platforms, sensors, actuators, protocols, interfaces practical study.

Traditional biology classes include lab experiments, which are missing from online education. Key challenges include the development of online tools to interface with laboratory resources, back-end logistics, cost, and scale-up. The recent emergence of biology cloud lab companies offers a promising, unexplored opportunity to integrate such labs into online education. We partnered with a cloud lab company to develop a customized prototype platform for graduate biology education based on bacterial growth measurements under antibiotic stress. We evaluated the platform in terms of (i) reliability, cost, and throughput; (ii) its ease of integration into general course content; and (iii) the flexibility and appeal of available experiment types. We were successful in delivering the lab; students designed and ran their own experiments, and analyzed their own data. However, the biological variability and reproducibility of these online experiments posed some challenges. Overall, this approach is very promising, but not yet ready for large-scale deployment in its present form; general advancements in relevant technologies should change this situation soon. We also deduce general lessons for the deployment of other (biology and non-biology) cloud labs.

Programming is part of the curricula in different subjects and countries. To face this challenge, schools are using visual programming (e.g., Scratch, Blockly) and/or educational robots. Some combinations of these two tools are very popular, such as the Lego Mindstorm robots. This work presents a remote controlled robot called RoboBlock, and its main characteristic is that it can be programmed and controlled via Internet. RoboBlock is developed under the WebLab-Deusto Remote Laboratory Management System.

This paper presents a study in which learning interactions of novice engineering students with robot manipulators focus on training spatial skills. To support the interactions, we customized the robots’ workspaces, designed virtual robotic cells, and developed robot manipulation tasks with oriented blocks. 20 high school students (HSS) majoring in mechanics and 248 Technion first-year students (TS) participated. The study indicated that following the training, the HSS improved their performance of spatial tests, and the TS gained awareness of spatial skills required to handle industrial robot systems.

With the advent of M2M and IoT, it becomes important for the educational remote laboratory to realize group M2M/IoT experiment environments, where a number of group experiments are concurrently carried out by making use of LAN-connected FPGA devices. Docker containers are employed to realize separate FPGA-Run service environments, corresponding to every FPGA devices. The Cyber laboratory can contain hundreds of FPGA evaluation boards and FPGA-Run service containers. Each of those pairs is allocated to one of twenty laboratory servers together. The Docker Swarm is also adopted to realize multi FPGA group experiments by allocating a set of FPGA board and FPGA-Run service container pairs. Each FPGA-Run Service container consists of a Web server application, a Web-camera motion, the FPGA-run application and associated individual FPGA device driver. A combination of the container and the corresponding FPGA-board pair realized a separate FPGA run service virtual machine. Newly designed gang scheduler issues a set of the Web services to start a group experiment together. By making use of Docker volume plugins, FPGA-run results and recorded videos can be sent to the common faculty data base for post experiment analysis. The use of inexpensive public cloud enables to offload most private cloud side workloads and to be migrated to public cloud. It realizes an easy scale out or shrinking functionalities. The hybrid cloud organization and the use of many FPGA-boards together with associated containers realized an efficient sharing of servers and the FPGA-devices. The use of the Web services and the Docker Swarm manager allow a flexible and easy device allocation/gang scheduling and initiation of group experiments. The paper showed the Cyber laboratory’s applicability for M2M and IoT kinds of remote experiments.

Experimental competences allow engineering students to consolidate knowledge and skills. Remote labs are a powerful tool to aid students in those developments. The VISIR remote lab was considered the best remote lab in the world in 2015. The VISIR+ project main goal is to spread VISIR usage in Brazil and Argentina, providing technical and didactical support. This paper presents an analysis of the already prosecuted actions regarding this project and an assessment of their impact in terms of conditioning factors. The overall outcomes are highly positive since, in each Latin American Higher Education Institution, all training actions were successful, the first didactical implementations were designed and ongoing in the current semester. In some cases, instead of one foreseen implementation, there are several. The most statistically conditioning factors which affected the outcomes were the pre-experience with remote labs, the pre-experience with VISIR and the training actions duration. The teachers’ perceptions that most conditioned their enrollment in implementing VISIR in their courses were related to their consciousness of the VISIR effectiveness to teach and learn. The lack of time to practice and discuss their doubts and the fulfillment of their expectations in the training actions, also affected how comfortable in modifying their course curricula teachers were.

Servo drives are used in a wide range of industrial applications including metal cutting, packaging, textiles, web-handling, automated assembly and printing. Servomotors in a typical industrial environment are linked to their end effectuators by transmission mechanisms having a finite stiffness. The elastically coupled two-mass motor/load system introduces finite zeros and the pair of conjugate complex poles in the transfer function of the system plant and, thus, brings up the problem of mechanical resonance. The resonance phenomenon may provoke weakly damped oscillations of the link. Vibration suppression and disturbance rejection in torsional systems are important issue in a high performance motion control. For experimental verification of mentioned phenomena at Faculty of Engineering at University of Kragujevac is developed a laboratory model of coupled electrical drives. The paper describes development and potential use of this laboratory model for engineering education and training. This experimental setup is very expensive according to Serbian standards and unique at Faculty of Engineering. In order to enable wider access to the laboratory model, and exemplary teaching/learning materials concerning with the laboratory model, the laboratory model is integrated in WEB laboratory.

The objective of this paper is to present an approach and experiences with introducing robotic devices accessible online to a course on Cyberphysical Systems in an undergraduate Software Engineering program. A closer look at both technologies, online labs and cyberphysical systems education, reveals that they are not in sync. Remote labs have embraced a wide variety of science and engineering disciplines, but they are not popular in software engineering. On the other hand, software engineering education, being crucial to the development of cyberphysical systems has not focused on such systems by any measure. This project and paper aim at addressing this gap.

Remote laboratories in the educational context are made possible by the integration of the latest advances in telecommunication technology, software architectures and educational standards support. Remote laboratories are important in education because they provide access to equipment that some institutions cannot afford to purchase or maintain, reduce the need for dedicated physical space for equipment and personnel to staff laboratories. But more than just fill the absence of a real physical laboratory, remote laboratories can improve the users experience through the use of enhanced adaptive interfaces that, when complemented with the use of educational standards like Tin can API, can provide information important in the educational context, for example, the mastery level of the student and the complexity of the experiment. Based on that information, the remote laboratory could take actions related to the controls of the experiment, for example, disabling or enabling part of the experiment controls. Using smart adaptive interfaces, the experiments can gradually increase their complexity, taking into account variables that are clearly identified as part of the learning processes, such as: difficulty level of the topic, students’ knowledge, and course level among others.This paper proposes a model and set of diagrams that define the integration of adaptive interfaces in remote laboratories for educational purposes.

Curriculum reform in engineering education has become a salient landmark in higher education landscape worldwide. Notably, the prevalence of collaborative online initiatives has dominated the scenes of rehabilitation of teaching and learning techniques that are most appropriate for the technology-native new generations of students. In particular, developing countries in the Middle East constantly strive to develop sustainable long-term plans to confront challenges, harness opportunities and maximise benefits of international trends in order to open up and attain equity and access of higher education. Internet-based physical laboratories represent an eloquent paradigm for reform, cooperation and modernisation of higher education. A communication engineering laboratory shared by a number of universities in Jordan is such an attempt that may worth presenting.

The manufacturing industry are dependent of engineering expertise. Currently the ability to supply the industry with engineering graduates and staff that have an up-to-date and relevant competences might be considered as a challenge for the society. In this paper an education approach is presented where academia - industry - research institutes cooperate around the development and implementation of master level courses. The methods applied to reach the educational goals, concerning expert competence within remote diagnostics, have been on site and remote lectures given by engineering, medical and metrology experts. The pedagogical approach utilized has been flipped classroom. The main results show that academic courses developed in cooperation with industry requires flexibility, time and effort from the involved partners. The evaluation interviews indicate that student are satisfied with the courses and pedagogical approach but suggests more reconciliation meetings for course development. Labs early in the course was considered good, and division of labs at the system and the component level. However further long-term studies of evaluation of impact is necessary.

This paper shows, how Pocket Labs, being the latest trend in engineering education, can be used together with already established Remote or Online Labs. Not only technical aspects, but also didactical methods and student’s motivation have to be considered.

For the class “Experimental Physics for Engineers” (1500 students each winter term) at the University of Stuttgart online laboratories (80% “virtual labs”/simulations and 20% remote experiments) are optional learning resources. In a new long-term investigative set-up the learning effects of online laboratories as well as the other learning resources are to be detected.

This work explains how to develop a fully functional virtual and remote laboratory (VRL) for a vibrating string of length L with both ends fixed. This laboratory is common in undergraduate studies of vibrations and waves. We propose the construction of a virtual laboratory built with Easy Java/Javascript Simulations. This virtual lab allows to explore the dependence between the frequency of the vibrating string and the physical parameters of the experiment. This work also explains how to build a remote laboratory using LEGO MindstormsTM, Arduino, and a LabVIEW specific software to control all the components. The remote laboratory exhibits the same behavior of a classical hands-on lab, allowing the user to measure different physical quantities and their dependence with the fundamental frequency of the vibration. Both the virtual and the remote labs are accessible through UNILabs: a Content Manager System created to host VRL on the cloud.

With increasing reliance on smart devices to communicate with each other to deliver critical services, it is important that the devices become intelligent and reliable. Such devices are widely used in Internet of Things applications that operate on the Internet. These devices often communicate with new nodes and face new situations while interacting with them. This paper focuses on providing a generalized description of the communication between a particular pair of devices. This description is based on regular expressions from automata theory. The regular expressions enable the devices to determine the properties of future interactions with other similar devices. This can help the nodes to validate incoming commands, evaluate the interactions and maintain a reasonable quality of service. A particular IoT application - a Remote Access Laboratory system, is shown as an example where the regular expressions can be used. This application aims to use the regular expressions based generalized descriptions to identify potential subroutines from previously stored interaction data.

Nowadays, the number of small family farms has grown considerably and it represents the main type of agricultural enterprise in the world. The family activity in agriculture is considered significant in terms of production of strategic food for the population, mainly in developing countries. Small family farmers, in general, are always on influence of weather, and as a consequence, usually they do not maximize the harvest, reducing then the incoming. Analyzing the small family farming current context, this paper proposes the development of a low-cost solution for control, monitoring and automation of agricultural greenhouse. The proposed solution was designed using prototyping as Raspberry Pi (RPi) and Arduino in conjunction with sensors (temperature, humidity, and light, among others) and few actuators (drip system, fans and incandescent lamps). For interaction between the farmer and the systems, it was developed a web human machine interface. Currently there is a prototype of the proposed system running in the campus facilities of Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) – Araranguá. Performance and stability tests were made in the system in order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed architecture. As a conclusion, with this study developed using sensors and actuators in a controlled environment prototype, it is possible to conclude that low cost solutions for family farms are extremely necessary and feasible.

Transportation industry is heavily regulated in the United States to ensure passenger safety and low environmental impact. Highways, being the primary mode of transportation, offer an exciting area of research to achieve both objectives. For instance, road markings play an important role in maintaining traffic safety by providing proper guidance to the vehicle drivers. The marking activities require strict control technologies due to the properties of the liquids used that may be hazardous to the driver and to the environment. With this motivation, this paper proposes an environmentally friendly system for paint consumption monitoring and inventory control that keeps track of the utilization rate of the marking liquid (i.e., paint) while the paint trucks are on service. Through this system the paint crew and the decision makers would receive information regarding the amount of paint that is consumed so that refilling would be possible without significant time loss. The system, using a shortest path routing algorithm, directs the truck driver to the nearest refill station and then, if needed, to the nearest customer. The real time information sharing allows accurate billing and real time inventory control. A computer vision system is used to monitor the amount of paint consumption where the collected data are then sent to a multi-network system for real-time communication.

Railway snow and sand monitoring has become an important safety issue, as they pose a serious threat to lives, property, and security. Snow disasters every year bring immeasurable losses to society, and sand obstructions can cause the shutdown of railway lines for weeks. This paper presents a detailed design and implementation of a non-contact railway monitoring system using a camera mounted on a mobile platform. The captured image is processed to identify the level of obstruction on a rail track. The goal is to transmit the obstruction data to the cloud in real time and enable monitoring using a web based graphical user interface. Once the obstruction crosses a predetermined threshold, the system will alert the officials.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are used in inspections on critical infrastructure such as oil, gas, water, pipelines, power networks, dams, monitoring crop vegetation status in precision farming, forest fires, and rescue operations. The paper presents a method to continuously maintain the Line Of Sight (LOS) between a Ground Control Station (GCS) and an UAV in order to improve the geo-reference accuracy of the acquired data. This need arose under a research project for monitoring the crops vegetation status when the UAV communicates with the GCS during the data acquisition process. For solving the problem, two pan-tilt modules Antenna Tracking Systems (ATS) were attached on UAV and GCS. They are controlled by a microcontroller development board, so that to keep the LOS between UAV and GCS.

A virtual radio frequency test environment is described using an FGPA with dual core ARM processors to implement transmitter and receiver chains in the digital domain and a single chip RF agile transceiver. These components are commercially available on development boards with software and firmware to provide the interface. A driver amplifier and a power amplifier are evaluated in the test set for linearization experiments.

The most big manufacturing plants such as large transfer line, large packaging machines, steel production line or plants for food and beverage are built for a long-live deployment and are usually energy-intensive processes. A redesign of mechanical parts is for a long usage term (20 till 30 years) not required. But upgrading of automation parts with more performance is a needful continuously process. An efficiently implementation of modern automation and IT technologies by currently engineering tolls is not the state of the art. On the beginning of this paper a model concept will be introduced, showing how the partition of the large plants can be performed in small collaborating parts with less complexity. The next model describes the distributed and allocated hardware and software components to determined plant parts. The developed distributed control system based on smart Ethernet nodes, which allows remote control and maintenance according elements of industry 4.0.

The Interactive Table as a part of the Interactive Classroom or Learning Lab, shows how teaching and learning spaces can be redesigned to support changing teaching styles and methods. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with content and ideas to enable essential experiences for the learner. Dinner Talk is the label of an infinite family of digital games, particularly designed for the Interactive Table. Dinner Talk is based on a novel software technology named Cubbles Technology. This software technology is investigated on the basis of the concept of Webbles and developed for the use of current web technologies (HTML5). Webbles is a component-oriented approach for developing Web-based applications. It is particularly suitable for problems where data from existing sources are integrated ad hoc, to be flexibly aggregated and analyzed. This includes the possibility to develop Webbles evolutionary further and combine them with one another. Dinner Talk is an experimental Game-Based Learning Scenario developed with Cubbles Technology.

The Experimento Game is part of Experimento, the international educational program of the Siemens Stiftung. The program Experimento is based on the principle of research-based learning and offers teacher trainings and curriculum-oriented hands-on experiments from the fields of energy, environment, and health. With Experimento, the Siemens Stiftung also aims to strengthen the teaching and formation of values during science and technology lessons. All Experimento teaching materials and additional media are available as Open Educational Resources on the media portal of the Siemens Stiftung. The online portal helps teachers to find age-appropriate media to introduce their students to global challenges such as the greenhouse effect, renewable energies, or the production of clean drinking water. To strengthen the formation of values during experimentation, the Siemens Stiftung is taking a new path: the development of a gaming module, which is based on the principle of learning through discovery. This means that children and young people actively shape their individual learning processes while playing, discovering and understanding scientific and technological interrelationships through Moral Dilemma Situations. They themselves develop questions independently, work out answers using a variety of methods and reflect on the solutions. Thus, the young scientists begin to recognize that success comes from their own actions – a valuable experience – which motivates them and strengthens their trust in their own capabilities.

In this paper a new methodology to teach the topic Finite State Machines to upper vocational school students is proposed. A Serious Game solution was created consisting of nine learning objectives split into categories about the basics of Finite State Machines, the parallels between Finite State Machines and stock trading and the application of Finite State Machines in order to construct Artificial Intelligence. This paper focuses on the existing parallels between Finite State Machines and the concepts of automated stock trading. The learning objectives were determined using Bloom’s Taxonomy and implemented into the Serious Game “The Finite State Trading Game” (FSTG). In this turn-based trading game, the user strives to beat a Non-Player Character by skillfully trading shares at various difficulty levels. In order to evaluate the Serious Game approach, a pre-test and post-test situation was performed with students of a local upper vocational school class at the Technical University of Munich. The analysis of the results showed major improvements of the students’ knowledge about Finite State Machines for every tested statement. Given the success of this test setting, FSTG appears to be a promising solution to be used to support or even substitute traditional ways of teaching.

Several thousands of people in Portugal use Portuguese sign language (PSL). Children belonging to this community have difficulties with communication and learning processes. There are some applications that focuses on teaching/learning PSL but with a limited interaction with the user, such as presentation of images of a hand gesture picture or avatar where the user must mimic the respective PSL hand gesture. Some other applications are more advanced using sensors to detect movements and gestures performed by the user. However, these applications do not implement an automatic interaction with the user of PSL. Following this trend, the main idea of this project is to develop a solution where deaf child can learn PSL in an interactive, dynamic and funny way. Therefore, this paper describes the first insights in the development of an interactive and didactic virtual game tool to learn the Portuguese Sign Language, in particular the numbers from 0 to 9. The alphabet and colors will be also included in the future. The target group considers deaf children in the first cycle of education level (primary Portuguese school). The developed game promotes the automatic interaction with the user through the Leap Motion controller. The system captures the hands and fingers gestures performed by the user and the graphical interface returns the adequate feedback. The preliminary results obtained show a good level of user experience with therapists.

Many studies have already confirmed the effectiveness of applying Game-Based Learning in certain environments. However, very few remain to study the design process or the game model of Game-Based Learning. This paper explains how the framework is implemented to a game best suited for Game-Based Learning in Security Studies classroom. The aim of this study is to define and develop a game best suited for enhancing learning outcomes of National Defense Strategy subject in International Relations Department. The research implements MDA Framework in the development process of the game. The implementation process is done using IT-BluTric framework. IT-BluTric framework lists all processes that needed to be done. After several processes are done, feedbacks from field expert are collected. The questions for the feedbacks are linked to the 4 Key Characteristics of a Learning Game (challenge, curiosity, fantasy, control), which has a deep correlation with MDA Framework. The final result is an assessment of using IT-BluTric framework in developing a Game-Based Learning, along with feedbacks for the game. The conclusions are hoped to give insights on how MDA Framework is implemented in a Game-Based Learning and the whole development process could serve as a reference to other Game-Based Learning applications.

Today, we are in the fourth industrial revolution. In this revolution, we include the Industry 4.0. The connectivity of all the objects, in our life or in the industry with the sensors and the actuators connected on the industrial network, create the Industry 4.0. Other people propose another definition for the Industry 4.0: the simulation of the industry is the new Industry 4.0. They build a virtual factory, with all the sensors, actuators, networks, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC’s), and so on…, they study the simulation with the reaction of the process, refine the system, and after they build the real factory in another part of the world.On the other hand, the disaffection of the students with the engineering studies obliges us to change our way of teaching. It means that we have to adapt the structures of our courses to the new e-native students. Considering this trend, our research team has built a tool for teaching, based on video game technologies, to attract and keep students. This tool is a virtual campus, similar to the real one of our University.

This paper seeks to report on the current state and attitudes towards higher education (HE) curriculum for the creative (game) industry sector in Ukraine. It is based on preliminary findings from high education and industries surveys, which examined the competences, demanded by this important sector of the UA economy from one hand, and, from another, offers of HEs in developing them. Moreover, a review of the literature performed to define the core employees’ profiles and their competences on the field job market. This paper explores competences, professional and transversal, that are important for the Ukrainian game industry and in what way should students be taught for “creative” tasks. This paper offers interested parties an analysis on how HE in Ukraine can develop relevant curriculum and deliver “industrial” education for students who intend to operate in this sector. The study results could be helpful for HE and policy makers to respond to current and future education needs.

Current society has observed an increasing number of victims of neurological disease, with reduced mobility, leading to a necessity to perform physical therapy to optimize their quality of life. This action results in physiotherapeutic programs filled with repetitive exercises, often fastidious, that lead to the demotivation of patients and consequent poor adherence and withdrawal. As a result of the technological evolution, new tools such as serious games are emerging, so their use in the field of physical therapy can modify the way patients face their treatments, promoting their motivation. Thus, we have developed a serious game based on image processing techniques to motivate and monitor patients with neurological diseases in their physical therapy practice.

With the diversity and increasing use of different information and communication technologies (ICT) in the educational sector, new pedagogic approaches are also being introduced and have had a major impact on the educational sector, focusing on different perspective including improved educational methods and in both schools and homes, information and communication technologies (ICT) are widely seen as enhancing learning, fulfilling their rapid diffusion and acceptance throughout developed societies. But the need to utilize ICT tools to support and guide educators in finding the right support for students with special individual needs is still a challenge, investigating different challenges that are presented to teachers in their working environment is an ongoing matter. One of these challenges that teacher face frequently is creating an inclusive environment. An “inclusive education” is a process of strengthening the capacity of the education system to reach out to all learners involved. It changes the education in content, approaches, structures and strategies, with a common vision that covers all children of the appropriate age range. Inclusion is thus seen as a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs of all children. Therefore an inclusive education system can only be created if schools become more inclusive, in other words, if they become better at educating all children in their communities with their individual needs. Therefore, creative forms of communication should be encouraged to promote personalized care, hence the focuses of this research is to investigate the use of data process flow map with the aim to guide the teacher towards an inclusive way of thinking.

Cyberlearning has the ability to connect learners from diverse settings to learning resources regardless of the learners’ proximity to traditional classroom environments. Tracking users’ movements through a cyberlearning interface provides data that can be used both to interpret students’ level of engagement in the learning process and to improve the cyberlearning system’s user mediation interface. The Online Watershed Learning System (OWLS), which serves as the end user interface of the Learning Enhanced Watershed Assessment System (LEWAS), is an open-ended guided cyberlearning system that delivers integrated live and/or historical environmental monitoring data and imagery. Anonymous user tracking in the OWLS helped to identify students from various courses as ‘groups of users’ across the world and assisted in providing information about the importance of various components of the mediation interface. A pilot test of this tracking capability was conducted in two first-year engineering courses at Virginia Western Community College during the fall 2015 semester. During this pilot test, tracking data was collected from a total of roughly 80 students from a total of four course sections. The data collected included the amount of time that each student spent using each component of the OWLS, the paths that he or she used to navigate through these components and how frequently each student returned to the OWLS. Suggestions for system modifications based on comparison of the time students spent using various system components with students’ post-test evaluation of the educational value of these components are included. To address the limitation of the data collected during the pilot study, which could not identify a user across different devices, a user login system is being developed for investigating individualized learning. The current system will address the need to understand in real-time the learner-specific pathways of content and progression, and these learners’ levels of engagement within the system.

Automatic Question-Answering (QA) systems and speech recognition/synthesis functionality and accuracy has improved dramatically over the last decade allowing the use of voice interactions for increasingly complex tasks. Virtual assistants, based on speech-based services are growing in popularity and are now entering the mainstream. These services and devices come with a set of built-in capabilities and in some instances allow the creation and addition of new functionality and abilities facilitating their use in a range of diverse application areas.Practical electronic and electrical engineering laboratories for undergraduate students are evolving incrementally driven by affordable instrumentation and hardware kit with internet access but remain fundamentally unchanged. This paper explores the practical use of virtual assistants and voice user interfaces in electronic and electrical engineering laboratories to tutor and assess students while accessing and controlling test instrumentation and circuits. The re-purposing of existing teaching resources and material for use in this context is discussed and a case study and practical working example of a virtual assistant enabled laboratory demonstrating the viability of this approach is shown.

There has been an explosion of sensor, presentation, and display technology available for exploration in Human-Computer Interaction. While much of this technology is readily available, approachable, and/or inexpensive, such as cell phone or Web display, other technology remains relatively expensive in the context of classroom instruction. This work presents an approach to exposing students to the principles encapsulated in expensive technologies using less expensive alternatives. Arranged in four broad categories, Brain-Computer Interfacing, Haptics, Augmented/Virtual Reality, and General interfaces, we survey a collection of devices and emerging technologies appropriate for student use in group and individual Human-Computer Interaction projects.

This article presents the idea of adding real objects representations to Virtual Reality as a way to improve the immersive experience. To this end, a low-cost hand tracking device and an instrumented cube based on the use of inertial measurement units is presented. Some preliminary results that show the use of the hand tracker for the animation of a virtual hand model are shown. The fusion of inertial measures with a vision-based marker detector outputs will be performed with the help of a Kalman filter to provide smooth and bias corrected estimates of the object pose. The developed solutions offer the flexibility of interacting either with local or remote systems, as they have been designed as wireless Internet connected objects.

This article discusses the use of Virtual Reality as a tool for supporting learning and some of its opportunities. The importance of using gaze tracking in immersive learning setups is also discussed. This serves as a motivation for the construction of an low-cost eye tracker adapted to an head mounted display (Oculus Rift DK2), which is described. The algorithm for eye tracking as well as the calibration procedure is described, with some results presented.

Experimental teaching is an essential link in teaching and learning activities, holding an important position in the modern education. However, it is impossible or difficult for some physical phenomena to be carried out in the classroom. With the advantages of portability and combining both the real and virtual world, mobile device and Augmented Reality (AR) technology are having a positive influence on the creating of cognitive tools. In this paper, we develop DSIAR, an AR-based interactive application on mobile devices, to simulate a physical experiment, double-slit experiment. DSIAR allows students to control and interact with a set of 3D models of laboratory apparatus through markers, to change the parameters to observe the dynamic variable phenomenon which is not easy to observe in the real world. The results of pilot testing show that DSIAR can have a positive impact on assisting teaching and learning, attracting students’ attention and stimulating their interest, suggesting significant potential for this learning application in practice.

This paper aims to describe a change in teaching practice of information security in college by presenting metacognitive aspects. From a constructivist view, students have to find a way for themselves and teachers have to serve as guidance in that teaching-learning process. Here we show some strategies in a framework to achieve in the field of cybersecurity based on our experience.

With the IT technology, the traditional power grid is being upgraded to the smart grid (SG) with two-way communication and power flow between utilities and customers. In addition, SG includes new technologies in distributed energy generation (DEG) and distributed energy storage (DES), advanced measurement and sensing, controls, cyber security, consumer-side energy management, and environment protection. Thus, it shows the advantages in efficiency, reliability, and security. A smart home is a mini power system with the renewable energy resources and the local energy management. Therefore, the emission and the power consumption can be reduced while the system efficiency will be improved. In this paper, particle swarm optimization is used to manage the power flow in a smart home with the objectives in the minimum cost and maximum comfort. Results from two homes with different size of PV systems are compared and discussed. The PV size for a stand-alone home is determined.

Factors of any computer network must be studied carefully and the specialty of any type of computer network must be taken into consideration to design an effective and a competent computer network and to avoid future deadlocks that might take place. Computer network factors are many as they can show its performance and capabilities. The examples of these factors are time delay, throughput, bandwidth, transfer of data, packet transfer, packet delay, http transfer, congestion, collision, Ethernet specifications, VoIP etc. This paper is depended on OPNET for developing a computer network simulation for Salahaddin University-Erbil measuring HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) service values. Moreover, the simulation is made without high speed medias and devices to make the design reliable and with superior performance sufficient to satisfy the university users’ requests.

At the Ilmenau University of Technology’s “Integrated Communication Systems” Department a main teaching concept deals with the design of digital control systems. Different lectures from the 1st to the 8th semester are using Finite State Machines (FSM) as a specification technique to realize different design tasks. During undergraduate studies the basics of Finite State Machines and their usage within the design of digital control systems are taught. To conceptualize more complex digital systems, as required in higher courses, it is necessary to use powerful toolsets. One example of such a toolset is the GIFT (Graphical Interactive Finite State Machine Toolset) system, developed by the Integrated Communications System Group at the Ilmenau University of Technology. With this toolset we want to extent our remote lab GOLDi and implement new techniques for a web-based development system for Finite State Machines.

The paper deals with the implementation and development of web-based platform, named WebSA 2.0, oriented to management of biomedical signals within a database. It comes from the need to create a space which makes easier sharing of biomedical signals from different sources whose are under digital processing for supporting biomedical research. The use of web technology with that purpose permits to enlarge the scopes of the system, as well as to add valuable services of any I+D environment. Four types of biomedical signals are considered: cry signal, electroencephalogram signal (EEG), electrocardiogram signal (ECG) and electroculogram signal (EOG). The performance of the collaborative web-based system was tested within the intranet and for several Windows standards with satisfactory results. The WebSA 2.0 system could be useful for any research situation in which the digital processing of different biomedical signals be involved.

To respond to the emergence of new technologies training, Moocs designers and their platforms are more worrying about learners with emphasis on practical work requirements essential for any technical training. Currently, solutions of practical work as a plug-in are available to extend the functionality of distance learning platforms. However these solutions, while integrating video features, audio, chat, screen sharing and audio are generic while the requirements to achieve practical work may differ depending on the specialty. For literary disciplines, learners just need to see and hear the teacher while for others like computer science, teachers and learners need to implement computer programs. Despite the existence of the Screen Sharing feature in the virtual classroom solutions, distance learning platforms do not offer the ability to properly carry out practical work in programming courses. For the latter, it is not only to have visibility into the work of a participant but to create an interactive environment between the participants. This interactivity cannot be managed with screen sharing solutions that consume much bandwidth. Thus, in this paper, we propose an optimization solution of practical work that easily integrates into a distance education platform. The proof of the relevance of our approach has been demonstrated through the implementation of a practical work programming led by a tutor and learners from remote workstations. Our solution not only have a global view of the whole teaching of practical work of the participants but also to interact with each participant while allowing others to monitor these interactions and intervene as necessary. This solution should also allow a participant to make a compilation and/or execution of code that is visible to other participants.

Remote laboratories are an important component of blended and distance science and engineering education. By definition, they provide access to a physical lab in a distant location. Many architectures enabling remote laboratory systems exist, the most common of which are Client-Server based. In this context, the Server interfaces the physical setup and makes it software-accessible. The Smart Device Specifications revisit a Client-Server architecture, with the main aim of cancelling the dependencies which inherently exist between a Client and a Server. This is done by describing the Server as a set of services, which are exposed as well-defined APIs. If a remote laboratory is built following the Smart Device Specifications, any person with programming skills can create a personalized client application to access the lab. But in practice, teachers rely on the mediated contact with a lab provider to have information about what kind of experiment(s) the lab in question implements. Even though there is a complete description of the available sensors and actuators making up a lab and how to be accessed, it is not clear how they are connected (relationships). In this sense, a list of sensors and actuators are not enough to make a guided selection of components to create the interface to an experiment. Therefore, the aim of this work is to support teachers in choosing the experiments and creating the respective UI on their own, in a pedagogically oriented scenario and by taking into consideration the target online learning environment. This is done by revisiting the Smart Device Specifications and extending them, in addition to proposing a tool that will automatically generate the user interface of the chosen experiment(s).

The School of Engineering Practice Technology (SEPT) at McMaster University is making a deliberate effort to train the next generation of engineers that are ready to work in Industry 4.0 environment. Under this effort we have developed equipment for teaching the technologies that support Industry 4.0, and this paper presents two sets of such equipment. The first set is used to teach machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, while the second is used to teach system control and automation data access. The accessed data is used in a multiplicity of students’ projects, including but not limited to SCADA systems, system simulation and control using fuzzy logic and artificial neural network, cloud based systems, and data analytics. In addition, this paper describes how the equipment is utilized to support graduate and undergraduate teaching through the experiential learning paradigm of laboratory based projects. The paper also presents example student projects that have been carried out using our equipment.

This paper covers a topic on design and implementation of web-based laboratory for programming and use of an FPGA device. This web-based laboratory will be used for remote programming and control of an FPGA device designed for use in the course “Introduction to Design and Control of Integrated Circuits for Communication, Sensors and Actuators” in Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac. Because of limited laboratory resources, both human and technical, needed for teaching programming of an FPGA devices on Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, a web-based laboratory is a viable solution to the problem This approach was proved successful in the past, namely in the course “Measurement and Control” on the Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, where 190 students have successfully done four laboratory exercises via web-based laboratory on four experimental setups. Experimental setup is consisted of Digilent Nexys2-FPGA development board connected to the USB port for programming, and Arduino Leonardo development board with Firmata firmware for controlling physical inputs of the FPGA board. Software for this web-based laboratory was written using MEAN stack. Outcomes of this work are full implementation of a web-based laboratory for teaching purposes of programming and control of an FPGA device, with all documentation needed for students to successfully pass a course “Introduction to Design and Control of Integrated Circuits for Communication, Sensors and Actuators” in Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac.

Software-defined radio (SDR), refers to wireless communication in which the transmitter and receiver both are able to modulate signals defined by a computer software. It is the capability of a system to behave as a transceiver and to be configured to various systems with the help data flow graphs on a software. Software Defined Radio is mainly configured by a popular open source library – GNU Radio. With the increasing need of laboratories and requirements of multiple devices, colleges and universities are unable to supplement to the demands of the students limiting them from performing experiments. In the same way, Software Defined Radio devices are high cost equipment not affordable by every college. This increasing demand in Software Defined Radio technology calls for finding an optimal solution to the problem. The solution involves, bringing Software Defined Radio - GNU Radio Library to a remote platform using Cloud Computing, Virtual Network Computing and Web Technologies, wherein the user is able to create data flow graphs and run his experiments on the hardware connected to the servers from anywhere across the globe. The benefits of using this Remote Software Defined Radio platform would be providing hardware access to every user without the need of purchasing it and eventually to provide a remote learning experience for the user. This would also mean that colleges can get access to readily available hardware in no time without setting up an actual laboratory.

Unlike schools 15 years ago, contemporary schools use many ICT tools in their classes, e.g. computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. accompanying by open educational software, OER and apps. Teachers gradually turned to more student-centred approaches like inquiry, game-based, project-building, flipped learning, learning-by-teaching to name only but a few. Personalized teaching and learning supported by all these approaches help schools offer more effective and efficient education. Although Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have proved to be helpful in university and adult education, until now they has not been yet deployed in school education. The ‘Open Discovery of STEM Laboratories’ project (ODL) exploits this potential and opens up MOOCs for it. In this paper, we discuss the first results of this implementation.

At present, many Chinese colleges and universities have reformed or are reforming their teaching model by using MOOCs. During the cultivation of engineering talents, how well is MOOCs applied and, are there any difficulties or puzzles encountered in this process? Based on a survey and analysis of XuetangX, China’s largest MOOC platform, this paper introduces the present situation of the application of MOOCs in China’s engineering education. In the meantime, based on the relevant survey, this paper analyzes the problems encountered in the popularization and application of MOOCs in China. It also gives some suggestions on the further development and application of MOOCs in the engineering education in China.

Institutions may have multiple reasons for converting courses and programs to an online format. The W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology in McMaster University’s Faculty of Engineering has recently begun the implementation of an online Software Engineering Technology Program as part of the Schools’ Degree Completion Programs (the final 2-years of a 3-year-plus-2-year Degree). The intent of this conversion is to attract students from an unlimited geographical area. While the online conversion is ongoing, there are a number of important observations worth sharing. This paper provides an overview of the motivation, challenges, and opportunities related to the conversion of an existing Software Engineering Technology curriculum to a fully online format. The purpose of this study is to highlight student feedback that rejects the notion of a ‘flipped-classroom’ in favor of a more traditional delivery-model (simply converted to an online format). This study also outlines a suggested implementation model for the conversion of a curriculum to an online format, with specific suggestions for the increased use of digital media, interactive resources, and synchronous online collaboration. Observations regarding the development of supplementary course material and the resources required to develop these materials are also provided. Recommendations from this study will include: a suggested format for online delivery of engineering/technical courses, suggestions regarding student assessment, a suggested timeline for implementation, suggested resources (technical support, etc.), suggested technology that provides the greatest ease-of-use for both instructors and students, suggested supplementary course materials, and a word about cost.

A remote laboratory is a software and hardware tool that enables students to access real equipment located somewhere else through the Internet. This equipment is usually located in universities, schools or research centers. During the last couple of decades, different initiatives have emerged dealing with the development and management of remote laboratories, their integration in learning management systems or their sharing. This last point is particularly relevant, since remote labs are a clear example of excess capacity: since they are usually used only some hours a day, some weeks a year, they could be shared among institutions to reduce costs or to increase the offer of experiential learning. However, despite this fact, the overall impact of these laboratories is fairly limited beyond the scope of the host institution or the scope (and duration) of projects in which the host institution is involved. The focus of this contribution is to outline a set of potential reasons for this fact, and solutions that are being developed to tackle them. After over 10 years working on the area, the WebLab-Deusto research group has started a spin-off focused on this topic, called LabsLand. A key factor of this spin-off is to provide a platform similar to other sharing economy marketplaces, aiming to provide features commonly ignored in the remote laboratories literature such as trust, accurate reliability or different pricing schemes for different scenarios; as well as the laboratories that are being initially provided.

Delivering education and educational resources has evolved from class-centered settings towards distributed, cloud-based models. This is mainly the consequence of publicly available educational resources such as documents, videos, and web applications. At the same time, emerging technologies in information and communication are enabling the development and deployment of remote laboratories on the Web. Today, these freely and openly available educational interactive media are known as Open Education Resources (OERs). Learning management systems, MOOC platforms, and educational social media platforms provide a medium for teachers to create their teaching activities around OERs in a structured way. To enjoy an effective and productive learning experience, it is necessary for the educational resources to be fully integrated in the hosting platform. While most platforms have a ready-to-embed infrastructure for certain types of OERs, they are not ready to host remote laboratories in an integrated fashion. In this paper, we define the necessary integration layers for remote labs in online learning environments. The work is validated by two implementations with different target platforms.

The Innovative Didactic Laboratories (IDLs) are part of a 3-year comprehensive program named Iscol@, the objective of which is to address school dropouts in the Sardinian Region. The Local Authority’s strategy tackles the problem from different viewpoints, including the opportunity for pupils to participate to Extracurricular Innovative Didactic Laboratories. This paper describes the philosophy behind IDLs, their characteristics and report on the data collected through monitoring the first year of activities (Academic year 2015–2016).

The Smart Beacon System, is a system with Bluetooth Low Energy devices, a back-end database with dedicated content management system (CMS), provides a low-entry, easy to use solution for all creative people to dedicate specific information to whatever object they desire, being paintings, statues, shopping windows, garbage bins,… themselves. The Internet of Everything for Everyone. A solution for dynamical maps storage, for usage in a mobile application, was investigated and an implementation suggested. There is also the idea of smart interfaces implemented, which displaying content based on the user’s preferences.

The fast development of the Internet and the huge number of gadgets connected to it has immerged with the challenge of focusing on the requirement for further computerization and automation in the system administration and architecture of network field. It is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to afford a downtime in their Internet system and it is also very important to make configuration management and error reduction easy [1]. Some of the tasks which are involved in the management of network configuration include maintaining configuration files, building a standard for all the device maintenance, repair, replacement and upgrades, issue proper rollback commands and have a proper backup archive [2].There are certain assumptions, rather, wrong assumptions for networks, as this leads to complicate structure for managing the overloaded content with a very high time consuming nature. Thus, automated networks control the data or packets around the heterogenous networks, providing higher response time for better communication services [3].Automatic management control permits to proficiently utilize the connection and hub limits. A second point of interest is adaptable control when burden condition changed quickly amid times of over-burden and hardware failures. Automatic management network has been developed and has been improvised for maintaining the flow control, proper memory utilization and improving the routing capacity [6].

Experimental evidence already demonstrated that music and colours have an influence on emotion, attention and concentration. Due to the rapid technical progress, new devices are available to evaluate even more the brain signals, to map and compare them with reference values. Therefore, starting from the fact that music and colours not only express emotion, but also produce emotions at different levels depending on the psychological and mental health of the user, we investigate with NeuroSky technology, precisely with the MindWave headset, the amplitude and spectral components of low frequency brainwave signal, translated into a relationship between music, colour and the outcome of mental activity. The aim of this paper is to investigate the music’s and colour’s influence on the brain activity, mainly the increase on the concentration level noting the help to students enrolled in distance-learning programs. A LabVIEW application is developed in order to better monitor and do the spectral analyses and statistics calculations of the music and/or colour induced brain waves.

The paper presents a framework for the development of a Cyber-Physical Systems Learning Centre that focuses on implementing Industry 4.0 concepts for teaching, training, and research. The Centre includes a series of specialized learning labs that allow the development various technical skills needed for production from the concept phase to the final product. The Learning Centre is expected to complement students’ qualifications and abilities by providing new technical skills that emphasize the inherent multidisciplinary nature of smart systems and advanced manufacturing. The Centre will also be a modern training facility for specialists from industry who are interested in the advantages of implementing Industry 4.0 concepts in their facilities.

Nowadays, information and communication technologies (ICT) influence all spheres of human life, including learning. Thanks to ICT, traditional learning approaches such as teacher-centred learning, mass instruction, once pace to all, using only textbooks and learning in classrooms, have radically changed. Students’ learning started to be supported electronically in the form of eLearning. The aim of this article is to explore the use of eLearning in medical education and healthcare practice and discuss its advantages and disadvantages to help deliver better care for patients and populations. The methods include a method of literature search of available sources describing this issue in the world’s acknowledged databases Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and MEDLINE, and a method of comparison and evaluation of the findings in the selected studies on the research topic. The findings of this review study indicate that eLearning is an important tool for medical education and healthcare practice in terms of the dissemination of knowledge, understanding particular health issues, continuous education, and training of busy healthcare professionals.

The improvement of the effectiveness of communicative interaction between the participants in the learning process is an important and necessary task of our time. The article classifies the methods that allow to optimize the forms of active interactive learning, offer models of technologies aimed at creation of so-called positive process of learning from the teacher’s decision making to the process implementation.The learning process inevitably involves a certain gap between the real professional and academic activities. The article analyzes the possibilities of the webinar as a method, allowing to some extent to remove this opposition. Authors develop principles of saturation the content of teaching with professional skills necessary for the future specialists.Synthetic nature of psycho-pedagogical methods and tools of webinars involves the use of an integrated methodology, which includes elements of pedagogy, philosophy, psychology, ethics, physiology, applied research, etc. the Use of this technique causes the need for multidimensional measurement of the effectiveness of the educational process. The novelty of the method lies in the fact that such modeling method as geometric connotation study of the problem is used on the basis of philosophical, ethical and psychological tools.For the first time article displays the chain to reveal the process of erroneous actions resulting from lack of competence, inability to present the material and also the influence of the environment.The authors reveal the mechanisms of possible erroneous actions which can lead to negative moments of learning, analyse their causes and make recommendations for their elimination.The practice of holding webinars has identified a number of specific difficulties of distance learning in on-line mode. The article analyzes specific problems arising in the course of webinars, practical recommendations to overcome them.The article developed guidance on how to apply this form of learning in educational environment of the University and virtual mobility, improve the professional level of teachers and workers of other sectors at the regional level.

This paper describes a new system developed to improve the import process of steel coils driven into a port terminal in the Port of Bilbao. A new RFID based system minimizes mistakes in identification of the coils during the inland movements of goods.

For over two decades an IR – Institutional Repository (at the time referred to as Digital Library) and an LMS – Learning Management System have been developed and integrated under the Maxwell System at Pontifícia Universidade Católica of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). It supports traditional face-to-face courses and offers distance and blended learning options. It is also a publishing platform. This model has proved very practical for many reasons mentioned in this work. To enhance the options for traditional, blended and distance learning, a Remote Lab was added to the Maxwell System. Adding a Remote Lab is an enhancement to the learning environment since it is a “real” equipment and not only a software for numerical computation. This work addresses this new integration and how it benefits from the original infrastructure of an IR and an LMS implemented as a single platform.

Since air traffic is increasing, airport operations have to be more efficient and obviously still stay safe. To do so, it is important to find innovative solutions to improve those operations. Two projects are presented in this paper. The first one is an intelligent video surveillance to monitor airport operations. The second one is a collaborative mobile robot to improve maintenance time and traceability of maintenance operations. Those two solutions are the first steps in direction of the airport of the future. Management of the operations, autonomous vehicles, non-destructive testing and human-machine collaborations will evolve and change the airport activities.

Training in industrial safety and maintenance is an important subject in the curriculum of technicians, technologists and engineers, in order to guarantee competences on the protection of people, goods and equipment in different industrial processes. In particular, industrial and manufacturing engineers and occupational hazards professionals must strengthen skills and abilities to assess risks, find fault, detect dangerous situations and generate mitigation and intervention plans [1]. For this, the subject of experimentation in real situations or very close to the real ones is made relevant, this favors the best understanding of the studied phenomenon and the lifting of mitigation plans more in line with the reality. However, the approach to special situations to an untested student could generate real risks and difficulties in the accompaniment. Due to this, the possibility of taking the student to these environments like Virtual Reality VR and Augmented Reality AR are explored that place the student in situations or environments that reproduce reality and with more information, reducing to the maximum the proximity with the source of risk and accompanying him for his correct evaluation of the performance.

Sketching 3D immersed experiences often require the designer to use some 3D modelling tool. The tools slow down the designers and can be a hindrance to the creative process. Moreover, the results often have the appearance of finished products. Hand sketching however, allows the designer more rapidly to express ideas that suddenly emerge and quickly disappear. Moreover, sketches drawn by hand have the advantage of looking unfinished. This paper proposes a simple method for making 3D sketches by hand and even on paper. Tool support is provided for transforming the sketches into 3D models that can be viewed using standard viewers that give viewers the immersed experience. The sketches can also be overlaid on existing panoramic images used for backgrounds. Sketches of 3D scenes and models are created by sketching various cross-sections of the scene from various angles. Several cases are used to illustrate how the framework is used. The sketches are viewed using a standard off-the-shelf panorama or point cloud viewers.

This paper surveys modular robot systems, which consist of multiple modules and aim to create versatile, robust, and low cost systems. The modularity allows these robots to self-assemble, self-reconfigure, self-repair, and self-replicate. Therefore, the surveyed research covered the previous characteristics along with evolutionary robotics and 3D printed robots. These fields are interdisciplinary, so we organize the implemented systems according to the main feature in each one. The primary motivation for this is to categorize modular robots according to their main function and to discover the similarities and differences of implementing each system.

Despite year-long efforts in education, studying and understanding physical phenomena still proves to be a challenge to both learners and educators. However, with the current rise of Virtual Reality experiences, interactive immersive simulations in 3D are becoming a promising tool with great potential to enhance and support traditional classroom setups and experiences in an engaging and immersive way. The paper describes the evaluation of the physics laboratory Maroon presented on two distinct VR setups: first, a mobile and cost-efficient but simpler VR experience with the Samsung GEAR and second, a more interactive room scale experience with the HTC VIVE. First results of both preliminary empirical studies indicate that the VIVE environment increases user interactivity and engagement whereas the GEAR setup benefits from portability and better flexibility. In this paper we discuss device-specific design aspects and provide a comparison focusing on aspects such as immersion, engagement, presence and motivation.

Emotion analysis is a key variable in textual analysis, namely that which focuses on detecting, separating or extracting information related to human attitudes and feelings-such as opinions or value judgments. This research paper aims to identify through a combination of built a human interaction Lab to identify human emotions in the classroom. Although this research is only currently in its developmental stage, it provides some conclusions about the state of the art as well as details of future works that will be carried out in the field of lab emotion analysis in an online environment.

Learning management system Moodle application for maritime transport specialists preparing in university with territorially distributed subdivisions and worldwide moving students is described. Corresponding arising challenges are shown and analyzed.