Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection logoLink to Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection
. 2022 Oct 6;55(17):150–155. doi: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2022.09.272

Pocket-Sized Portable Labs: Control Engineering Practice Made Easy in Covid-19 Pandemic Times

P B de Moura Oliveira *, Filomena Soares ⁎⁎, Alberto Cardoso ⁎⁎⁎
PMCID: PMC9536766  PMID: 38620976

Abstract

New pocket-sized laboratories are proving to be an excellent tool as complementary equipment that students and lecturers can deploy to test control engineering design techniques. Here, the description and outcome results of an IFAC activity funded project entitled as Pocket-Sized Portable Labs: Control Engineering Practice Made Easy are presented. The project was executed in Portugal, from January 2021 to the end of June 2021, during the SARS-CoV2 pandemic. The global aim of this project was to motivate pre-university students to enroll in control engineering courses by showing and demonstrating that simple practical experiments may be easily accomplished using portable pocket-size laboratories.

Keywords: Portable Laboratories, Control Engineering Education, Arduino

REFERENCES

  1. Alvarado I., Maestre J.M. A Lightsaber to Introduce Students to Microcontrollers. IFAC PapersOnLine. 2019;52(9):139–143. N. [Google Scholar]
  2. Ari A., Meço G. A New Application in Biology Education: Development and Implementation of Arduino-Supported STEM Activities. Biology. 2021;10(506):1–17. doi: 10.3390/biology10060506. N°. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Chancharoen R., Maneeratana K. IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE) 2020. Introducing Raspberry Pi and Its Peripherals to a Mechatronics Course Under COVID-19 Disruption; pp. 883–888. [Google Scholar]
  4. Hedengren J. D. (2019), Temperature Control Lab Kit, https://apmonitor.com/heat.htm, retrieved in 12-09-2021.
  5. Hedengren J.D., Martin R.A., Kantor J.C., Reuel N. AIChE Annual Meeting.  ; Orlando, FL: 2019. Temperature Control Lab for Dynamics and Control. Nov 2019. [Google Scholar]
  6. Juchem J., Chevalier A., Dekemele K. and Loccufie M., (2020), Active learning in control education: a pocket-size PI(D) setup.
  7. Kalúz M., Kaučo Čirka L., Fikar M. Flexi2: A Portable Laboratory Device for Control Engineering. IFAC PapersOnLine. 2019;52-9:42–47. [Google Scholar]
  8. Moura Oliveira P, Hedengren J.D. 24th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA) 2019. An APMoni-tor Temperature Lab PID Control Experiment for Undergraduate Students; pp. 790–797. [Google Scholar]
  9. Moura Oliveira P.B., Soares F. 4th International Conference of the Portuguese Society for Engineering Education (CISPEE)  ; Lisbon: 2021. How we Turned Fully Digital due to Covid-19: Two Control Engineering Teaching Experiences; pp. 1–5. [Google Scholar]
  10. Moura Oliveira P.B., Hedengren J.D., Rossiter J.A. Introducing Digital Controllers to Undergraduate Students using the TCLab Arduino Kit. IFAC-PapersOnLine. 2020;53(2):17524–17529. [Google Scholar]
  11. Organtini G. Arduino as a tool for physics experiments. IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series. 2018 doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/1076/1/012026. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  12. Oteri O. IEEE Sixth International Conference on e-Learning (econf) 2020. The Arduino e-kit as Applied in Engineering, Science and Technology e-learning; pp. 285–289. [Google Scholar]
  13. Park J., Martin R.A., Kelly J.D., Hedengren J.D. Benchmark Temperature Microcontroller for Process Dynamics and Control. Computers & Chemical Engineering, Special Issue in Honor of Thomas F. Edgar. 2020;135 doi: 10.1016/j.compchemeng.2020.106736. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  14. Rossiter J.A., Pope S.A., Jones B.L., Hedengren J.D. 12th IFAC Symposium on Advances in Control Education, July 7-9, 2019.  ; Philadelphia, PA, USA: 2019. Evaluation and demonstration of take-home laboratory kit”, Invited Session: Demonstration and poster session. [Google Scholar]
  15. Steinhauser A., Verbandt M., Van Duijkeren N., Van Parys R., Jacobs L., Swevers J., Pipeleers G. Low-cost Carry-home Mobile Platforms for Project-based Evaluation of Control Theory. IFAC PapersOnLine. 2017;50-1:9138–9143. [Google Scholar]
  16. Wang W., Pang S., Wu T., Han B. OCEANS 2019 MTS/IEEE Seattle. 2019. ArduinoSub — A Low-Cost ROV Kit for Ocean Engineering Education; pp. 1–6. [Google Scholar]
  17. West J., Vadiee N., McMahon A., Lake K., Ray B., Billie T. IEEE Integrated STEM Conference (ISEC) 2017. From Classroom Arduinos to Missions on Mars: Making STEM Education Accessible and Effective Through Remotely Operated Robotics; pp. 88–95. [Google Scholar]

Articles from Ifac-Papersonline are provided here courtesy of Elsevier

RESOURCES