Online Laboratory Sessions for the Education of Electrical Machines and Drives

Abstract

This paper presents a method to implement online laboratory sessions for education in Electrical Engineering on subjects related to electrical machines and drives. The assignments for the laboratory sessions consist of: the preparation homework, where students have to study relevant theories; the development of circuit simulations; and the participation on a practical session online. For the latter, the students have to implement remotely various models in a physical setup based on the results of their homework tasks. After taking the assignments, the students should be able to: set up circuit simulations of electrical machines and drives; to implement relevant control of motor drives in a physical setup; and finally, to interpret the differences between the simulation and experiment results. Detailed design of the physical setup, the assignments, the relevant Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facilities are presented and discussed in this paper. An example and the feedback of applying it in a master level course is presented. The experience gained so far shows that the proposed online laboratory sessions can be used as supplementary educational resource to existing online education platforms.