Led by Fathi Ghorbel, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, the remote laboratory system at Rice is acting as a proving ground for the technology. Ghorbel uses the system in teaching MECH 420, Feedback Control of Dynamic Systems. Although the technology is often discussed at teaching conferences around the country and internationally, Rice is among the few groups actually using the technology. Ghorbel chaired a breakout session at a National Science Foundation-sponsored meeting last fall called New Directions in Control Engineering Education. During a lecture on dynamics, control and robotics, for instance, a professor could use the remote system to demonstrate live, using experiments set up in a neighboring building, another university or another country.
Students can use the remote robots to explore control systems and theory.
Researchers could share facilities. Web robots could become economical research tools. Real-time remote access to systems makes it possible to share resources, use a complementary center, eliminate duplication of efforts, and to make highly technical, expensive lab equipment available that otherwise could be difficult or impossible to access. NASA scientists used such a remote system to control the Pathfinder mission on Mars from around the world. Back at Rice, among the Swiss robots Rice students can control are an inverted pendulum, an electrical drive system and the toy copter, a laboratory helicopter.