University methodology for internetworking principles and design projects

An undergraduate engineering internetworking learning environment that presents both internetworking principles and laboratory experimentation is described. The learning environment uses the source code availability of the Linux operating system as a case study of the implementation issues and ramifications of internet networking infrastructures. Laboratory use of experimentation with internetworking equipment and software allows interaction with internetworking principles and fundamentals as well as implementation and performance issues. The objectives of this environment include providing a comprehensive mechanism whereby students are exposed to fundamentals and principles that may readily be applied to experimental-based internetwork research and internetwork product development. A follow-on capstone design environment is also briefly described.     

A multimedia manual on the World Wide Web for telecommunicationsequipment

An interactive multimedia educational manual on the Internet through the World Wide Web for commercial optical fiber telecommunications equipment is described. The Telecommunications Laboratory Manual is a vehicle for enhancing engineering education with realistic laboratory or virtual laboratory experience. The manual provides a brief system tutorial, operating instructions, online help, and multimedia experimental demonstrations. It incorporates block diagrams, photographic images, and hypertext links that are mouse clickable, allowing users to access documents or links describing components or processes in any order. An experimental section guides students through laboratory experiences, demonstrates selected equipment characteristics, and provides for direct instructor contact through e-mail. Other remote resources on the Internet are linked to create a global multimedia library. This paper describes the manual, its multimedia design, its use in the curriculum, and its further potential     

Laboratory project in wireless FSK receiver design

This paper describes a wireless local area network laboratory project that provides senior and first-year graduate students in microwave engineering courses the opportunity to design, build, and test several passive microstrip components and integrate them into a working system. Students design filters, couplers, amplifiers, diode detectors, quarter-wave transformers, antennas, and stub matching networks in weekly labs that parallel-lectures in a one-semester microwave engineering course. This paper also describes simple inexpensive prototyping and testing methods that have been used in this course. Laboratory materials and technical details of the design are provided on the web for students and educators.     

Project-oriented adjustable speed motor drive course for undergraduate curricula

Adjustable speed motor drive design requires knowledge of various electrical and mechanical fundamentals. The theories of these fundamental topics are very well addressed in different courses during the undergraduate level of a typical electrical engineering education. Furthermore, related laboratory courses help students to improve their practical skills to some extent. Since they find experimental equipment ready to use, product development skills with group work cannot be improved in laboratories. Also, these separate courses and their associated laboratories regarding fundamentals, such as power electronics, electric machines, electric circuits, electronics, dynamics, and thermal analysis, are independent courses, and students usually cannot find a chance to apply all these fundamentals to a single problem before starting their professional career. This paper summarizes a project-oriented adjustable speed drive design course suitable for senior electrical engineering undergraduate students. The project was divided into several subsystems, and each subsystem was assigned to a group of students among 28 enrolled students. The paper gives enough details for each subsystem to develop an induction motor drive system.     

Applications of dynamic data analysis: a multidisciplinarylaboratory course

This paper describes a junior-level multidisciplinary laboratory course centered around industrial applications of dynamic data acquisition and analysis. The course was developed with funding from an NSF Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement (ILI) grant and is offered as a NSF Foundation Coalition (FC) course. It is also open to traditional aerospace, electrical, industrial, and mechanical engineering students. In the course, teams of four (maximum) students with complementary interests and skills are drawn from more than one discipline. It is intended that the associations developed within and among the teams will enable cooperative multidisciplinary design projects in the senior year. The course consists of four weeks of introductory material followed by four laboratory modules, each concerning a specific application of signal acquisition and analysis. Currently, these modules include speech encoding and enhancement, machinery sound power measurement, machine condition monitoring, and motor condition monitoring. Each module is independent, so the modules may be presented in any order. The course concludes with a small design project. Three instructors have been involved in teaching the course, one from mechanical and two from electrical engineering     

The Junior Electronics Laboratory: Opportunities for Invention

An electronic circuit design laboratory for juniors emphasizes creativity and innovation in solving practical problems. Students in pairs do the design, construction, and measurement on each project. Students are free to select the method(s) of attack and the materials and instruments they need. The working circuit is demonstrated and the design is defended in an oral examination once a week. Laboratory scheduling and the duties of each member of the laboratory staff are discussed. The costs in man hours and materials of running the laboratory are broken down and the use of materials donated by industrial gift programs is pointed out. The final project of the semester, lasting three weeks, simulates a typical industrial engineering atmosphere. The students compete to see who can design the lowest cost circuit that meets the specifications. Costs for materials, labor, patent applications, and royalties are totaled in the comparison. The problem selected is one with many solutions and many clever ideas result from this competition.     

A New Role for the Undergraduate Engineering Laboratory

Laboratory oriented instruction for engineering students continues to be a difficult aspect of engineering education. The decreased amount of laboratory instruction in the curriculum, the decreased presence of professorial rank faculty in laboratory instruction, the dwindling level of student interest, and the inadequate resources applied to laboratory oriented instruction are some of the symptoms of the broader, deeper malaise found with this segment of engineering education. The roles the undergraduate engineering laboratory are expected to play are important in determining the future of the engineering laboratory. These roles are usually stated in terms of how the laboratory experience serves the student. To these roles another is added: the continuing professional development of the faculty. This added role gives great emphasis to laboratories concerned with new and developing topics in the discipline. One possible scenario for the engineering instructional laboratory of the future may require a lower level of resources than a more traditional approach, but demands even more in terms of new, properly maintained equipment, competent support staff, and direct involvement of faculty.     

An Energy Conversion Laboratory Using Industrial-Grade Equipment

Laboratory experiences are an important component of the education of engineering students. Rotating machinery laboratories assist with the visualization of the three-dimensional and rotating equipment. Contemporary use of rotating machines in industry often includes adjustable speed drives and digital controllers. Additionally, instrumentation is used to feedback electrical and mechanical variables to the drives and controls. Using an equipment grant from an industrial automation manufacturer, cost-effective laboratory workstations have been developed. Industrial-grade equipment is not designed for student experimentation but was adapted for this use. The workstations described in this paper incorporate modern power electronic-based drives and motors, electrical and mechanical sensors, and a computer-based control system with data acquisition. The advantages of these workstations include cost-effectiveness and the use of actual industrial devices that students might encounter in industry. Additionally, the workstations can be accessed by remote users, enabling off-campus students to also perform experiments on the workstations. The paper includes details of the workstation and its components, the data acquisition and control system, and sample experimental results.     

Enhancement of Student Learning in Experimental Design Using a Virtual Laboratory

This paper describes the instructional design, implementation, and assessment of a virtual laboratory based on a numerical simulation of a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process, the virtual CVD laboratory. The virtual CVD laboratory provides a capstone experience in which students synthesize engineering science and statistics principles and have the opportunity to apply experimental design in the context similar to that of a practicing engineer in industry with a wider design space than is typically seen in the undergraduate laboratory. The simulation of the reactor is based on fundamental principles of mass transfer and chemical reaction, obscured by added ldquonoise.rdquo The software application contains a 3-D student client that simulates a cleanroom environment, an instructor Web interface with integrated assessment tools, and a database server. As opposed to being constructed as a direct one-to-one replacement, this virtual laboratory is intended to complement the physical laboratories in the curriculum so that certain specific elements of student learning can be enhanced. Implementation in four classes is described. Assessment demonstrates students are using an iterative experimental design process reflective of practicing engineers and correlates success in this project to higher order thinking skills. Student surveys indicate that students perceived the virtual CVD laboratory as the most effective learning medium used, even above physical laboratories.     

A Digital Computer Engineering Laboratory

The course and laboratory discussed in this paper offer students an opportunity to gain realistic experience in the engineering of digital computers. The laboratory provides a sufficient number of logic elements to allow students to construct general purpose digital computers of modest design; only a few assemblies of fixed design are provided. The course progresses from work with basic combinational and sequential circuits through the design and testing of digital subsystems, to a project in which groups of students are challenged to specify, design, test, program, and demonstrate their digital computer. Two years of experience indicate that students are willing to enthusiastically expend a great deal of effort to meet this challenge.     

Distance learning applied to control engineering laboratories

Distance learning is an emerging paradigm where students, teachers, and equipment may be at different geographic locations. At the College of Engineering of Oregon State University, we have developed and demonstrated an innovative real-time remote-access control engineering teaching laboratory. Our remote laboratory uses the Internet to provide complete access to the usual laboratory facilities. In addition, remote power control, network reliability, and safety features are integrated into our experimental hardware and software design. Remotely located students are able to develop, compile, debug, and run controllers in real time on the experiments in our laboratory. Students can watch the experiment in real time from a remote workstation, hear the sounds in the laboratory, and interact with other laboratory users. Students can effectively use the laboratory from anywhere on the Internet     

A more practical approach to integrate low voltage distributionsystem into the electrical engineering curriculum

This paper describes the author's new attempt to introduce a 10-hour lecture on low voltage (LV) distribution system with a 5-hour design exercise and a 5-hour project work for all electrical engineering students. It is felt that most of the electrical engineering graduates will possibly encounter more applications in the LV system rather than the traditional power system analysis. The system earthing and the associated electrical parts for the LV network can be easily implemented in a laboratory for students to test and operate. In the design exercise, the PC-based integrated tool not only guides the students in a step-by-step approach and provides a CAD tool to automate the repetitive design process, it also evaluates the student's performance in the design exercise by using error log and a demerit point system. In the guided project work, the students are exposed to a physical LV simulator identical to an industrial installation to carry out inspection, testing, turn-on supply, fault diagnosis and restoration of supply. In a survey from 600 students, 24% strongly agreed, and 52% agreed that this 10-hour design and project works are useful and challenging. Many students expressed that they are interested in their first exposure to a power engineering project     

Embedding remote experimentation in power engineering education

Engineering education by its nature is a costly program in university environments. Perhaps the most costly component is the laboratory facility, usually consisting of specialized equipment. Effective instruction of some topics in power engineering education requires experience with actual equipment, rather than small-scale replicas or simulation. In this paper, a new laboratory approach is described, as implemented in a virtual, Internet-based, experimentation platform. This virtual laboratory (VLab) utilizes real equipment distributed among multiple universities from which remotely located students can perform experiments. The software solution is a multiuser, client-server architecture developed in the LabVIEW environment. Implementation details including video, chat, archiving, and the hardware and software platforms are presented in the paper. An example presented herein is the study of current and voltage waveforms while controlling relays and low-voltage contactors. The applications have been tested with student teams enrolled in the electrical engineering department of Politehnica University of Bucharest and the power engineering program at Arizona State University.     

电气设备接头发热原因统计分析及预防措施

针对2010—2011年超高压输电公司广州局101起接头发热缺陷,分析了发热原因。故障主要由电气设备的接头或者线夹的表面氧化、设备检修或试验的工作人员失误,以及电气设备生产厂家缺乏对接头设计核算等三方面原因所造成。将电气设备接头分为影响负荷传输类和不影响负荷传输类,分别就两类接头提出相关建议处理措施和控制指标,指出下一步应进行的研究工作。     

基于区域自组网的配电线路无线差动保护技术研究及应用

差动保护为配电线路下的故障快速精准隔离提供了可靠有效的手段,但传统的光纤通道敷设困难,运维成本高,限制了其在配电网的应用。提出了一种无线通信下的配电线路差动保护设计方案。采用区域自组网技术构建差动保护的通信通道,信息传输不依赖于公共网络传输设备。采用动态定向补偿技术实现各侧数据的精准同步,不依赖于外部对时设备。采用多级安全策略加强网络安全,提高保护业务数据传输及接入的安全性。采用无线通信抗干扰技术避免电磁波干扰,保证数据传输可靠性。通过实验室搭建试验平台进行系统测试,结果表明基于区域自组网的无线通道传输延时短,延时抖动小,数据传输可靠性高,通道及保护功能各项性能指标完全满足配电线路差动保护要求。最后通过试运行验证了该技术具备工程应用推广价值。     

The effects of nonlinear loads on EMI/RFI filters

Power feeder electromagnetic interference/radio frequency interference (EMI/RFI) filters are widely used in the Army and industry for filtering unwanted signals on power lines supplying sensitive loads such as computers and communication equipment. Typically, these low pass filters are passive circuits designed to attenuate frequencies above 10 kHz. Under 60-Hz sinusoidal conditions, the filters dissipate little power, but when nonlinear loads are present (such as those associated with computers, adjustable speed drives, electronic power supplies, and communication equipment), significant power dissipation can occur within the filters. This can shorten filter lifetime or even lead to complete filter failure. Laboratory testing and mathematical analyses were performed on a selected EMI/RFI filter to: (1) determine its frequency response in the 60 Hz-3 kHz range, (2) identify the filter components that dissipate the most power when subjected to harmonic currents, and (3) measure filter component temperature rises when harmonic line currents are present. It is shown that power line harmonics, not considered by EMI/RFI filter manufacturers, interact with filter component parasites and cause considerable power dissipation in the filters     

Teaching design for assembly using product disassembly

This paper describes an effective pedagogical approach to teaching design for assembly (DFA). DFA is a well-established technique for reducing the difficulty of assembling a product through identifying design changes. DFA has significant direct and indirect benefits to reducing the manufacturing cost of a product, improving its reliability and ease of service and simplifying the entire manufacturing system. The pedagogical approach described emphasizes hands-on learning. The hands-on activities arise through exposing students to the concepts of DFA through disassembling industrial products. The approach includes lectures, a laboratory and an examination. The educational material is appropriate for mechanical, industrial, manufacturing or interdisciplinary engineering education     

An Economical Self-Supervised Individually Operated Open Electronics Laboratory

A senior electronics laboratory at Michigan Technological University has operated for more than a year with 100 students each term working individually on an open laboratory basis. The objectives of the laboratory are to teach the theory and practice of experimentation and supplement engineering theory presented in the classroom. Students schedule their laboratory time in two-hour blocks and perform experiments alone without direct supervision. This laboratory has increased development of experimental skills for all students compared with traditional group operation. The laboratory has functioned on a small budget with no new equipment in the first year and no increase in instructor time. This mode of operation is presently being extended to selected analog, digital, and electromagnetic laboratories.     

Lightning strikers [alternative energy]

This paper describes UK's new and renewable energy center, called NaREC. Part of NaREC is the Clothier Laboratory, which is a commercial high voltage testing house and one of a few facilities in the world that can test electrical equipment performance under extreme conditions. Clothier Laboratory features the lightning generator, which simulates impulses of up to four million volts, and a massive two million volt AC transformer to test electrical equipment for optimum grid operation. It also contains a second medium voltage laboratory used to test distribution equipment under AC and DC conditions, and for a range of phenomena.     

A Projects Laboratory for Electrical Engineering Students

This paper describes a laboratory course in electric machines and power systems that is under development at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for senior electrical engineering students. The basic premise being followed is that students learn only by doing original work in which they are genuinely interested. Therefore, the assignments consist of original projects, selected by the individual students which require making and testing some novel assembly of machines and circuits. Examples of these projects are making a mercury electric pump, making and testing various forms of reactor with alnico, solid steel, or copper sections inserted in the ac flux path, developing a novel battery charging circuit for automobiles with ac power supply and a static current regulator in place of the usual voltage regulator, and testing a self-excited alternator of novel design with a static voltage regulator.