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Target groups

Workers with combined work tasks and knowledge in the field of electronics, mechanical engineering and informatics are needed in automatic production and other processes at three levels of difficulty:

  • as operators
  • processing installation administrators
  • processing technology experts

Free of charge pilot e-course in project MeRLab is adjusted to serve as an additional vocational training course for the needs of the first two described professional profiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Primary group

The main target group for our training is therefore represented by workers who have already completed formal education in the field of machine or electrical engineering and are currently employed by SMEs or large enterprises, more precisely working within the production processes which include mechanical machine devices for electronic control systems. Due to an increased complexity of devices requiring mechatronic know-how their knowledge in either mechanical or electrical engineering only proves often to be insufficient, resulting as a substantial need for further training of such staff. 

 

Potential users  

Potential mechatronic e-course participants are also the employed or the unemployed who have completed their formal education in other fields (for ex. textile sciences, chemistry, pharmacy) but have some experience in managing electronically controlled mechanic machine installation systems.

 

 

The contents of the MeRLab e-course

The MeRLab e-course will include the following four models:

  • Introduction to Mechatronics 
  • Servo Motor in Mechatronics 
  • Electrical Circuits in Mechatronics 
  • Mehatronic Devices

It is recommended that the modules be studied in the given order. However, the users with sufficient preliminary knowledge can also study separate modules. Send your application to the electronic address This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The course is going to be held in February 2009 at UM FERI, Maribor, Slovenia.

  • In the first module, Introduction to Mechatronics, the term of mechatronics, the development of mechatronics, and the structure of mechatronic devices are going to be presented.
  • In the second module, Servo Motor in Mechatronics, the role of the actuators in mechatronics are going to be described. Basic operational principles of direct current motor are going to be presented, together with the short description of the construction of a typical direct current motor. This is going to be followed by the definition of the control problem in mechatronics and the description of a few simple controllers. Finally, the velocity and position control of the servo motor are going to be presented via the execution of a remote experiment.
  • In the third module, Electrical Circuits in Mechatronics, a few basic electrical circuits, together with the way in which such circuits can be analysed and applied in mechatronic devices, are going to be described. For the illustration of these circuits, remote experiments are going to be used. The tuning of a simple controller which is suitable for such circuits is going to be presented via remote experiments, as well.
  • In the fourth course module, Mechatronic Devices, the structure and operation principles of complex mechatronic devices, including robot mechanisms, are going to be described. Firstly, the mechanical elements for the transmission, as well as the various types of joints and sensors are going to be described. The explanation of the operating principles of robot mechanisms is going to follow. As a case study, the Scara robot is going to be described in detail. Real world problems that appear with the controlling of complex mechatronic devices are going to be demonstrated by the execution of remote experiments on the robot.  

 

 

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Learning environment 

The access to the web learning portal is enabled at any time and from any place. Thus, you can adjust your time and place of your studying completely according to your own desires and needs. All you need is a computer with the access to the Internet.

After entering the portal with your user name and password, you can choose between the learning and evaluation, or read the current news. Moreover, there are various forms of communication at your disposal: you can communicate with your mentor or other users via private e-mail messages, as well as co-operate in a forum where the messages can be read by all users.

With the aid of the multimedia and interactive e-materials, you will gain new knowledge. The contents are thus enriched with pictures, schemes, and animations. An additional variegation is simultaneous questions for the knowledge evaluation and interim tests. After each test, you can immediately examine which question you answered correctly and which incorrectly which serves as an excellent learning tool.

The greatest advantage of the learning environment is the use of a remote laboratory. This does not only represent the simulations, but also the access to the real hardware which you can control with the suitable parameters. The behaviour of the device is presented simultaneously in numerical and graphical values. Moreover, a learning value also has the video picture which is transmitted “live” via the video camera in the laboratory.