Affordable Remote Platform for Robotics Learning in Engineering Courses

Abstract

Robotics teaching in universities has faced important challenges, such as continuous technology evolution and overcrowded institutions, causing pressure on them to continuously reinvest in expensive resources. Over time, new paradigms based on remote and virtual laboratories, allowing to share resources, have been adopted to address these problems. But these approaches lose their efficacy when equipment reached obsolescence. One way to address this problem would rely on an approach, which could enable reusing existing robotics equipment, aiding it with new functionalities. This could be done by developing a remote laboratory platform with the ability to regenerate the functionality of existing robots. Using this strategy, robotics resources can be combined with software components that allow their enhancement with more sophisticated functionality. With this platform, students can use the equipment with new features. Institutions will suffer less pressure to invest in their replacement, allowing them to plan their budget as the curricula are modified to meet the needs of industry and services.