Content

Embedded Control Systems has several objectives, some non-technical:

Objective 1

This course is an introduction to embedded control systems, with an emphasis on the smart moving machines of the next generation, i.e., robots, cars, trucks, machine tools, airplanes, satellites, combine harvesters, etc. The objective is to introduce the students to the roles and responsibilities of innovation project engineers in companies that design and develop such embedded control systems. Actively striving to introduce “innovation” in a company is a very important attitude that the course wants to stimulate, with the design deliverable as the main outcome.

Objective 2

Within the very broad context of “embedded systems”, the course puts strong emphasis on:

• the systems-level thinking: every part of the system is selected and tuned for the goals of the whole system.
• innovative design: comparison of possible alternatives should be done on the basis of informed and motivated argumentations, and each design should clearly identify why it is “better” than what exists already.
• design automation: what standards and tools exist to support the design in large-scale projects, in which no single person can keep the overview and control of the whole design process.

Objective 3

The concrete contents of the course are detailed during the first lectures, in dialogue with the students. Indeed, students are expected to have a strong influence on these concrete course contents, since this is a perfect example of how, in their future professional live, they will be responsible for their company's initiatives, innovation and realisations!

A major aspect of this responsibility is that the students must make sure that they learn effectively and sufficiently, by pro-actively engaging in a constructively critical interaction with the teaching team and with their peers. In other words, learning is an continuous and conscious activity, so certainly not something one postpones until the examination period…

Learning targets

The course targets the following “ACQA indicators” used to describe learning objectives that courses should try to focus on and optimize (Source: Criteria voor Academische Bachelor en Master Curricula, P.M.M. Rullmann, R.A. van Santen, W.H.M. Zijm, 2005):

• Skilled in research: students are taught how to do research, that is, how to explore and structure new domains of knowledge in a systematic and goal-oriented way.
• Scientific approach: the learning takes place via the formulation and motivation of hypotheses and models to explain the working of the “world”, and the consequent corroboration or refutation of those hypotheses via confrontation with the factual reality and/or the input from more experienced peers.
• Takes temporal and societal context into account: knowledge only has added value in specific application contexts, and that value is often determined not only by technical properties but also by legal, ethical and societal values, norms and beliefs.

Course material

Het opleidingsonderdeel heeft een eigen website en mailinglijst

Content

To be defined by students and lecturer. The idea is to think about the design of a mechatronic system-of-systems that could become reality in five to ten years. Students are expected to come up with concrete descriptions of innovative designs, with a core contribution on the technical mechatronic aspects of that innovation, and with a SWOT analysis of their design, including at least two Milestones with measurable benchmarks.

Course material

Lecture notes provided during oral interaction sessions.

Format: more information

The students can have some interactive discussion sessions with the lecturer about their individual project, but the course's mailinglist is the major instrument: this reflects the state-of-the-practice in the domain of embedded control systems, and also introduces the students to a (for them) still unexplored modern ICT tool.