Transcription

1 This article was originally published in a journal published by Elsevier, and the attached copy is provided by Elsevier for the author s benefit and for the benefit of the author s institution, for non-commercial research and educational use including without limitation use in instruction at your institution, sending it to specific colleagues that you know, and providing a copy to your institution s administrator. All other uses, reproduction and distribution, including without limitation commercial reprints, selling or licensing copies or access, or posting on open internet sites, your personal or institution s website or repository, are prohibited. For exceptions, permission may be sought for such use through Elsevier s permissions site at:

2 Mechatronics 17 (2007) Abstract Mechatronics curriculum development at Philadelphia University in Jordan Tarek A. Tutunji *, Mazin Jumah, Yehia Hosamel-deen, Saber Abd Rabbo Mechatronics Department, Faculty of Engineering, Philadelphia University, P.O. Box 1, 19392, Jordan Received 1 March 2005; accepted 14 March 2006 Mechatronics system engineering has gained global interest in the past decade from the educational and industrial sectors. Several universities in the middle east have introduced mechatronics engineering for undergraduate studies. One of those pioneers is Philadelphia University (PU) in Jordan. This paper presents the mechatronics curriculum developed at Philadelphia University with emphasis on regional needs. The paper also includes comparisons among local and global curricula. It is concluded that there is a rising demand of mechatronics engineering studies in the middle east. Local mechatronics programs must establish strong ties to the local industry and cooperate with global partner universities in order to overcome obstacles such as lack of funded research and design centers. Ó 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Keywords: Mechatronics curriculum development; Mechatronics study in the middle east 1. Introduction The term mechatronics was first used in the late 1960s by a Japanese Electric Company to describe the engineering integration between mechanical and electrical systems [1,2]. Mechatronics can be defined as the analysis, design, and integration of mechanics with electronics through intelligent computer control. Today, mechatronics system engineering has gained much recognition and importance in the industrial world and therefore many universities have established engineering degrees in mechatronics. Middle eastern universities initiated mechatronics programs in the late 90s. Since then, the local interest in this discipline has increased tremendously. Universities in Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and United Arab Emirates currently offer mechatronics degrees. PU in Jordan is one of the mechatronics engineering pioneers in the middle east region. The mechatronics program was initiated in year 2000 and accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education in Jordan by The mechatronics faculty at PU includes well qualified professors with educational and industrial experiences from around the globe: USA, Japan, England, and Egypt. This faculty was, and still is heavily involved in workshops around the middle east (Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt) that discuss, compare, and develop mechatronics systems curricula. Many papers have been published that discuss mechatronics curriculum and education development in North America and Europe [3 8], but none have focused on mechatronics education in the middle east. This paper presents the Philadelphia University experience in teaching mechatronics engineering in the middle east. The paper will also include comparisons among local and global university curricula with emphasis on regional needs and objectives. * Corresponding author. Tel.: x253, (mobile); fax: addresses: ttutunji@yahoo.com, ttutunji@philadelphia.edu.jo (T.A. Tutunji), y.hendawy@philadelphia.edu.jo, yhendawy@yahoo.com (Y. Hosamel-deen), saberabdrabbo@yahoo.com (S.A. Rabbo) /$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi: /j.mechatronics

3 66 T.A. Tutunji et al. / Mechatronics 17 (2007) Motivations and objectives The plan to launch a mechatronics curriculum at PU was motivated by several factors: 2.1. Industrial needs As regional industry developed through automated production and computerized manufacturing, requirements for multi-disciplinary engineers with in-depth knowledge of mechanics, electronics, and computers increased. The demand for such system engineers was fast developing, even though mechatronics as a term was still not known in the industry. The rising demand for mechatronics study in Jordan is evident by the increasing number of students at PU as shown in Fig. 1. Other local and regional universities have shown similar trends [9 12]. Furthermore, the increasing development of automatic production, micro electromechanical systems (MEMS), intelligent sensors, and automotive technology accelerated the growth of mechatronics as documented by several reports [13 16] Educational motivation As interaction among different engineering fields increased, students were encouraged to study system functionality. This developed the need for a curriculum that offers integrated system engineering Mechanical engineering development As technology advanced, computers and electronics started to play bigger roles in mechanical systems and therefore more and more mechanical engineers started to take computer and electronics courses in order to strengthen their grasp on mechanical system technology. Surveys to the industry showed that companies expect mechanical engineers to have computer science and electronics skills [17]. Students Given the cited three main motivations, PU underscored that its main objectives in launching the mechatronics curriculum was to provide the following: a. Integrated system education to equip the graduates with the necessary knowledge and skills needed for the regional industry. b. In-depth knowledge in the analytical, experimental, and computational areas of mechanics, electronics, control, and computer engineering. c. Knowledge and skills to analyze, design, program, build, and maintain fully integrated engineering systems. 3. Curriculum structure at Philadelphia University Curriculum at Jordanian Universities must follow general guidelines set by the Accreditation Committee within the Ministry of Higher Education. These guidelines include the number of credit hours needed to obtain the BS degree, the main fields of department expertise that must be covered, the minimum number of laboratories, and an appropriate percentage among the university, faculty, and department requirements as explained in Sections Engineering degrees in Jordan are five year programs with 160 credit hours. The mechatronics curriculum at PU was initially developed by the combined efforts of the mechanical, electrical, and computer departments at PU. A specialized committee that consisted of two associate and two assistant professors (two mechanical engineer, one electrical engineer, and one computer engineer) was given the task of developing the curriculum in The committee studied global curricula (mainly in North America and Europe), modified per regional needs and available expertise, and proposed the mechatronics curriculum in The initial proposal had heavy emphasis on mechanical engineering since it was the offering (mother) department. In 2002, the mechatronics engineering department was established as an independent entity in order to nurture and further develop the curriculum, identify the detailed Academic year Fig. 1. Number of students at mechatronics department, PU.

4 T.A. Tutunji et al. / Mechatronics 17 (2007) course contents, and establish the laboratories. Initially the department had one professor, two assistant professors, and one lab engineer that provided for 39 students. By 2005, the department had grown to include two professors, two associate professors, two assistant professors, three lab engineers, and two technicians that provide for 206 students. The current curriculum is a collaborated result from all faculty members with regional workshop consultations over several years of development [9 12]. The curriculum is described in the rest of this section University requirements PU, guided by the ministry of higher education and scientific research in Jordan, has set 27 credit hours for general university requirements to be studied by all university students. They include Arabic and English languages, computer skills, and national studies courses Engineering faculty requirements The faculty of engineering has set 29 credit hours divided into two main areas: mathematics and engineering skills. The former includes the general calculus, differential equations, and numerical analysis needed for engineering students. The later, engineering skills, is concerned with Electrical Machines Power Electronic & Drives Analog & Digital Electronics developing the students engineering personality and leadership. It was noted that in many programs, graduating students lacked the essential communication skills needed to excel in the real world. In order to treat this phenomena, PU offers three well designed courses: engineering fundamentals, engineering skills, and entrepreneurship to be studied in the first, third, and fifth years accordingly. These three chain courses form the backbone of engineering thought Mechatronics department requirements The mechatronics department requirements were set to 104 credit hours. Those include 95 compulsory and nine elective hours. mechatronics engineering was divided into five main fields: electrical and electronics, mechanics, computer, control and instrumentation, and systems as described below: Electrical and electronics This field includes electrical circuits, analog and digital electronics, power electronics, drive circuits, and electric machines Mechanics This field includes statics, dynamics, vibrations, thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluids, CAD, manufacturing, Year 5 Year 4 Electrical Circuits CAD / CAM Hydraulic & Pneumatic Syst. Manufacturing Technology Thermofluids Machine Design Dynamics & Vibrations Statics DSP Automation & Robotics Analog & Digital Control Sensors & Actuators Statistics & Quality Control Machine Intelligence PLC Simulation & Interface microcontroller Systems Programming Logic Circuits Mechatronics Senior Project Mechatronics System Design Mechatronics Intro. Project Year 3 Year 2 Math + Physics + English + Arabic Year 1 Fig. 2. Department requirement modules for mechatronics engineering at PU distributed across main fields of knowledge.

5 68 T.A. Tutunji et al. / Mechatronics 17 (2007) material science, machine design, hydraulic and pneumatic systems Control and instrumentation This field includes analog and digital control systems, robotics, automation, signal processing, sensors and actuators, statistics and quality control Computer engineering This field includes logic circuits, microprocessors, microcontrollers, PLC, programming, simulation, interface, and machine intelligence Mechatronic system design This field concentrates on the integration among electronics, mechanics, computer, and control in order to analyze and design fully integrated systems. Fig. 2 gives the department requirements modules for mechatronics engineering at PU. The figure is divided into five rows (representing the five-year program) to show the order in which the students take those modules. It is also divided into five columns to emphasize the five main knowledge fields. For simplicity, the figure combines related courses (such as analog and digital control) into a single module. 4. Curriculum structures at other local and global universities Curricula at several global universities were used as a benchmark comparison with the PU program. They are University Linz (Austria) [18], Waterloo University (Canada) [19], North Carolina Sate University, NCSU (USA) Table 1 Percentage of expertise courses among global universities Fields of expertise Universities with mechatronics degrees (%) PU Linz a Waterloo NCSU Glamorgan Electrical Mechanical Control Computer Systems a Linz offers ten sub-mechatronics degrees. We included only the common courses (i.e. 3.5 years of education) as a benchmark. [20], University of Glamorgan (Wales) [9,10], as shown in Table 1. Several regional universities were also used for comparisons. They are Jordan University, Balqa Applied Science University, Hashemite University (all three are from Jordan) [11], Tishreen University (Syria) [9,10], Ain Shams University and 10th of Ramadan University (both are from Egypt) [21,22], as shown in Table 2. In both comparison studies, we excluded math and science and humanities courses in order to emphasize the core mechatronics courses. The percentage given in the tables include only the engineering courses taught at the given universities. The detailed curriculum for each university was analyzed and each course was categorized in one of the five main fields of study as described in Section Laboratories at PU The mechatronics curriculum contains eight laboratories (each with one credit hour). Since mechatronics is multi-disciplinary, five of those labs are supported by other engineering departments. These are electrical circuits lab and electric machines lab are offered by the electrical engineering department, electronics lab offered by the electronics and communication department, mechanical and vibration labs offered by the mechanical department, and computer lab offered by the computer department. These are traditional laboratories that include oscilloscopes, function generators, power supplies, IC components, springmass systems, vibrations apparatus, circuit components, DC and AC motors, etc. PU invested heavily in the specialized mechatronics laboratories. Four labs are offered by the department: mechatronics, control, instrumentation, and fluid automation. The mechtaronics lab contains experiments that are concerned with the design and analysis of fully integrated mechatronics systems. It emphasizes the microcontrollers and microprocessors input/output interface through sensors and motors. The lab is equipped with PIC microcontrollers kits, Intel 8085 kits, Motorolla 68HC11, and TI DSP kits. Programming interfaces include assembly and C languages. The instrumentation lab contains different sensors and transducers such as temperature, optical, conductive, Table 2 Percentage of expertise courses among regional universities Fields of expertise Universities with mechatronics degrees (%) PU Jordan Univ Balqa Hashemite Tishreen Ain Shams 10th of Ramadan Electrical Mechanical Control Computer Systems

6 T.A. Tutunji et al. / Mechatronics 17 (2007) capacitive, and strain gauge sensors. The sensors are interfaced with processors and computers through data acquisition systems interfaced through dedicated software such as LabView and Matlab. The control lab contains speed-and-position motor control kits, inverted pendulum system (which represents conventional and intelligent control strategy), and complete pneumatic and hydraulic control units (which include servo drives, PID controllers, and fluidic memory). The automation lab contains a CNC machine, a robotic system (with conveyers, motors, and sensors, which represents flexible manufacturing system), and PLC units. 6. Projects and regional industry The mechatronics department at PU promotes practical graduation projects for the students. Students are encouraged to do reverse engineering of available mechatronic systems in order to understand the system dynamics and build a duplicate system. The emphasis is on the actual implementation and fabrication of a complete mechatronic system. Through the process, the student learns to analyze existing technology, understand system functionality, design, and build products. Two such products were a CNC (computerized numerical control) machine and a Tech arm robot shown in Figs In both projects the students were able to build fully functional prototypes. All the elements of mechatronics (mechanical, electrical, control, programming, and system integration) were involved in both projects. To further strengthen the student projects, links were made with the local industry in order to realize in-demand Fig. 4. Tech arm robot. Fig. 5. CNC prototype. projects. One such example was the financial support of King Abdullah II Fund for the building of a full size threeaxis CNC machine. Such machines are in great regional need Fig. 3. CNC machine: designed and implemented at Philadelphia University.

7 70 T.A. Tutunji et al. / Mechatronics 17 (2007) and are imported throughout the manufacturing industry. Building CNC machines locally would be a great success. Other projects targeted the local industry needs include the design and implementation of a control system for capsule production and an automatic food processing system. The mechatronics staff made several visits to a local capsule production company, Arab Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals, in order to offer consultations on developing automated systems for the capsule production lines. Students worked on projects that control the oven temperatures and fluid levels. Contacts were also made with a local vegetable and fruit processing company in order to develop automated sorting and grading production lines for their products. Such automated systems are imported from Europe. Our goal is to work closely with the industry in order to build those systems locally. 7. Challenges The biggest challenges in developing a successful mechatronics curriculum in the middle east region are as follows: The size of the production, automation, and manufacturing industry is relatively small. The technology used is imported and therefore there is a lack of design and support centers. Research is subdued since most of the local universities do not offer graduate degrees in mechatronics. Since mechatronics is an applied and integrated field of engineering, the lack of a strong industrial foundation undermines the ability to compete globally. In order to overcome those obstacles, the mechatronics department should focus on two fronts: Increase the cooperation with the local industry and set common goals. Establish exchange programs with North American, European, and Japanese universities in order to transfer the technology and learn from their experience. 8. Conclusions Philadelphia University (PU) in Jordan is one of the regional leaders in mechatronics engineering education. With a well developed curriculum, advanced laboratories and experienced staff, PU was able to establish a strong department. Mechatronics is applied engineering and is heavily related to the industry. Therefore, mechatronics education must establish strong ties with the local industry. Furthermore, post graduate programs should be established in order to energize the research and build the mechatronics momentum. References [1] Harashimi F, Tomizuka M, Fukuda T. Mechatronics: what is it, why, and how. IEEE/ASME Trans Mech 1996;1:1 4. [2] Tozimuka Masayoshi. Mechatronics: from the 20th to 21st century. Control Eng Prac 2002;10: [3] Wright Andrew B. Planting the seeds for a mechatronic curriculum at UALR. Mechatronics 2002;12: [4] King Tim. Millwrights to mechatronics: the merits of multi-disciplinary engineering. Mechatronics 1995;5: [5] Giorgio Rizzoni, Ali Keyhani. Design of mechatronics systems: an integrated inter-departmental curriculum. Mechatronics 1995;5(7): [6] Lyschevski Sergey Edward. Mechatronics curriculum: retrospect and prospect. Mechatronics 2002;12: [7] Giurgiutiu Victor, Bayoumi Abdel-Moez, Nall Greg. Mechatronics and smart structures: emerging engineering disciplines for the third millenium. Mechatronics 2002;12: [8] Meek S, Field S, Devasia S. Mechatronics education in the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Utah. Mechatronics 2003;13:1 11. [9] TEMPUS-FINSI workshop. Beirut, Lebanon, July [10] TEMPUS-FINSI workshop. Tripoli, Lebanon, 1 7 September [11] Mechatronics day workshop. Amman, Jordan, 3 August [12] Engineering accreditation workshop for Jordanian universities. Amman-Jordan 12 July [13] An industry cluster analysis for newva region of Virginia. Prepared by Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness at Arlington, Virgina. Presented at 5th planning district regional alliance. September [14] Thomas Simon. Mechatronics systems: a semiconductor perspective. A Motorola presentation, 7 September [15] The North American market for control and mechatronics in packaging machinery sector. Published by IMS research, [16] A submission to the higher education review committee. Prepared by the school of mechatronic engineering university of western sydney, Nepean, 22 April [17] Leinonen T, Jutila E, Tenhunen I. On the requirements of industry in mechanical engineering education. J Eng Educ 1997;1(1). [18] Mechatronik studienplan fur die studienrichtung an der technischnaturwissenschaftlichen fakultat der Johannes Kepler Universitat Linz [19] Mechatronics education in Canada: past experience and future directions. Presented by University of Waterloo and Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering. University of Waterloo, ON, Canada, 18 May [20] North Carolina State University, < mechatr_links.html>; 2005 [accessed ]. [21] Curriculum plan for undergraduate program. Faculty of engineering, Ain Shams University, Egypt, [22] Curriculum plan for undergraduate program. Faculty of engineering, 10th of Ramadan, Egypt, Tarek A. Tutunji is currently serving as the chairman of the mechatronics department/faculty of engineering at PU. He has experience in manufacturing and design development where he worked for four years as manufacturing engineer with Halliburton in Texas and two years as design developer with Seagate in Oklahoma. He has a Ph.D. in industrial engineering and MS in electrical engineering, both from University of Oklahoma, USA. He is involved in developing the mechatronics curriculum guidelines at the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Integrated Systems Interface (ISI) Curriculum in the middle east through the TEMPUS-FINSI Joint European Project.

8 T.A. Tutunji et al. / Mechatronics 17 (2007) Mazin Jumah joined the University of Technology in Baghdad, department of systems and control in 1976, became the dean of the engineering college in 1977, became the president of the foundation of technical institutes in 1985, and the president of the University of Technology in During that period he has published over 90 papers and books regarding control engineering and education. He has extensive experience in connecting higher education with the industry and participated in many regional international conferences and workshops. He is a currently a member of the mechatronics department at faculty of engineering in PU and is involved with TEMPUS-FINSI Joint European Project. Yehia Hosamel-deen is currently working as a member in mechatronics engineering department and vice dean of the faculty of engineering, PU, Jordan. He is involved in mechatronics curriculum design in 10th of Ramadan engineering section, Egypt, and PU. He was a head of mechatronics department in 10th of Ramadan and PU. Teaching experience is 30 years. He got the Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin Madison, USA. and automation. Saber Abd Rabbo is currently serving as associate professor in the mechatronics department at PU. He joined the faculty of engineering, Zagazig University, Benha branch, Egypt in 1985 as assistant lecturer, became assistant professor in 1994, and associate professor in He has experience in the field of process control and automation. He is involved in developing the mechatronics curriculum guidelines at the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He has published over 18 papers in the field of process control, robotics