2.12.2010

Tampere University of Applied Sciences responds to the needs of industry
International courses in measurement and control technology

Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) in collaboration with three foreign universities has developed new courses in electronic measurement and control technology. On these students can practice in international co-operation, notably the technical systems developed for systems control and measurement. The development work was funded mainly by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme.

Jani Katajisto, TAMK project engineer (left) and Jarmo Lilja, senior lecturer are researching the use of LabVIEW programming language in the controls of a loading and fatigue measurement system. High resolution image (464 Kb) Photo: Kalle Heiska

The common factor of the new Virtual Measurement Environment Course in Finland, Belgium, Ireland and France is the internationally used graphic programming language LAbVIEW. This programming language, known as G Language, is relatively easily learned for basic level measurement and programming tasks and each of the four universities involved used it in their respective special fields: electronics, physics and TAMK’s industrial automation control and environment measurements.

During the development work for the courses TAMK’s Finnish and international exchange students accomplished eight theses and on the basis of feedback on these a basic LAbVIEW course was created at TAMK and based thereon courses in automation control and environment measurement. As an outcome of the development project these courses are freely availably in English at each of the four institutions involved – for example in Moodle and Toledo learning platforms.

The development work is part of TAMK’s research and development. The project was coordinated by the Katholieke Hogeschool Brugge-Oostende in Belgium and participants also included the Dublin Institute of Technology and the University of Bordeaux. The work served to consolidate earlier cooperation among these institutions and all the courses developed can be installed in their respective electronic learning platforms, thereby enabling, for example, common open and distance learning among international groups.

The electronic courses offer the students an opportunity to progress ever more independently in their studies. They make it easier to learn the distributed measurement and remote control functions needed in industry and the course material is also appropriate, for example for those studying and training for facilities technology and health and welfare measurement. In addition to the courses of study the higher education institutions can also offer novel, versatile measurement services to meet even the international needs of business life.

The four universities on the project are preparing to incorporate each others’ new electronic measurement courses into their course offerings. In any case they will endeavour to further develop the course they have created together, part of which already contains international distance laboratories.

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