Teaching Practical Robotics During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study on Regular and Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulations

Laboratory experiments are important pedagogical tools in engineering courses. Restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic made it very difficult or impossible for laboratory classes to take place, resulting on a fast transition to simulation as an approach to guarantee the effectiveness of teaching. Simulation environments are powerful tools that can be adopted for remote classes and self-study. With these tools, students can perform experiments and, in some cases, make use of the laboratory facilities from outside of the University. This paper proposes and describes two free tools developed during the COVID-19 pandemic lock-down that allowed students to work from home, namely a set of simulation experiments and a Hardware-in-the-loop simulator, accessible 24/7. Two approaches in Python and C languages are presented, both in the context of Robotics courses for Engineering students. Successful results and student feedback indicate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches in institutions in Portugal and in the Netherlands. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Remote or Virtual Laboratory for HIL (Hardware-In-the-Loop) Testing Education

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the education has to be undertaken virtually on digital platforms in Hungary and many other countries. This presented new challenges to our department at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. Our education and primary its laboratory part was very hardware focused. This paper introduces our solution for educating model based embedded system development and HIL (Hardware-In-the-Loop) testing in a remote or virtual laboratory environment. The laboratory uses a racing car simulator as a platform. Using the measurements data gathered from the racing car simulator the students can create their own control algorithms (like speed controller, or automated steering) and modify the behavior of the car. The laboratory can be configured to a virtual setup, where just simulations, and models are used, or it also can be configured to a remote setup, where real hardware-s is used through a VNC interface based virtual desktop access. © 2022 IEEE.

IOT based automation of Hardware-In-Loop test bench

The setup of an automated hardware-in-the-loop test bench using the IOT's ethernet facility is proposed in this paper. The implementation of this embedded structure was critical in the COVID-19 scenario for sticking to social distancing guidelines. The key hardware used to automate the manual test benches for in-house development of this embedded solution is an Arduino UNO with an Ethernet shield.Automated test bench setups have benefits over manual test bench setups, such as shorter testing times and no manual effort. The results show that the proposed automated hardware-in-the-loop test bench setup was successfully implemented, with the added benefit of internet of things using an Arduino Uno ethernet shield. © 2021 IEEE.

Application of embedded control for automation of Hardware-In-Loop test benches

The setup of automated hardware-in-the-loop test bench is proposed in this paper.The proposed embedded system performed very important role in COVID-19 situation. Following social distancing rules and work from home scenarios becomes very easy due to development of this system.For in-house development of this embedded solution, Arduino UNO is the main hardware used to automate the manual test benches.Furthermore to operate the required functions such as power on/off, battery on/off and key switch on/off, MATLAB GUI (Graphical User Interface) is developed and application is created for it to make it user friendly. The main drawbacks of the manual-Test-Bench setups are they are time-consuming, complex, not user friendly and there are chances of manual errors also. Automated test bench setups have advantages of reduced testing time, no manual efforts in comparison to manual test bench setups. Results are provided to show the successful implementation and merits of the proposed automated hardware-in-the-loop test bench setup. © 2021 IEEE.

Soda Bottling Process Through the Virtual Hardware in the Loop Technique

Currently, the world is going through an unprecedented health crisis, which has caused significant impacts in the teaching–learning area during the confinement stage due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the education system has opted for virtual education through immersive technologies. In this sense, this work presents the development of an industrial process of packaging bottles implemented in the Unity 3D graphics engine. The proposed control scheme considers the hardware in the loop simulation technique, consisting of: (i) process simulation, this stage considers the virtualized process and the mathematical equations that represent the dynamic behavior of the industrial process;the process simulation is implemented in a main computer, and (ii) target hardware, this stage considers the implementation of the advanced control algorithm in low-cost embedded cards. The results obtained allowed the immersion and interaction of the user with the virtual environment, which is part of the hardware in the loop simulation technique. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.