Systems Engineering as an Undergraduate Degree

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Systems Engineering asan Undergraduate Degree

• Federal University of Minas Gerais - UFMG
• School of Engineering
• Oriane Magela Neto
• Associate Professor of the Department of
  Electrical Engineering

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Systems Engineering

• Systems Engineering is a multidisciplinary
  field of engineering which focuses on developing
  and integrating complex systems.
• It concentrates on the design and application of
  the whole system as distinct from the parts.
  Technical and social aspects of the system design
  and application should be related.

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Summary

• Brief History
• The Structure of the Course
• Facilities
• The System Engineering Profession in Brazil
• Progress

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1. Brief History

• 1.1 The School of Engineering of UFMG
• 11 undergraduate courses
• 09 graduate courses
• approximately 5,500 students
• One hundred years of history.
• 1.2 The REUNI Program
• It was launched in 2008
• Special budgets for undergraduate courses.

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• 1.3 The Systems Engineering Course
• It was proposed in the Department of
  Electrical Engineering in 2008, approved in the
  University Council in 2009 and started in 2010
• It was proposed by professors involved in the
  Electrical Engineering Graduate Program who
  belong to the research groups of Optimisation and
  Computational Intelligence
• It is an evening hours Course with 12 terms
  (semesters).

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2. The Structure of the Course

• The Systems Engineering Undergraduate
  Course is basically structured in two main
  routes
• a technical and scientific route
• a route of Humanities.
• Each route is divided into 03 stages and they are
  integrated among themselves.

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2.1 The Technical and Scientific Route

• Basic stage mathematics, physics, statistics and
  computing
• Intermediate stage modelling and analysis of
  engineering systems involving the subjects of
  electromagnetism, thermodynamics, aerodynamics,
  electric circuits, control systems, chemical
  processes etc . The approach here is
  computational

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• Systems engineering stage optimisation,
  computational intelligence (neural networks,
  fuzzy systems etc) theory of decision
  reliability software engineering, project
  management etc. This stage comes straight from
  the Graduate Course in Electrical Engineering.

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2.2 The route of Humanities

• First stage the fundaments of Humanities
  philosophy, history, theories of society,
  psychoanalysis etc
• Second stage languages, literature, music,
  theater, dancing, arts, team work
• Contact with society social activity and/or
  social project. A project involving the students
  of the Systems Engineering Course and teenagers
  accomplishing educational and social measures by
  law has been already implemented.

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2.4 Project Laboratories

• Particularly important in the Course structure
• five laboratories from the 5th to the 9th
  term and one multiphysics laboratory in the 8th
  term
• General idea of practising engineering and
  innovating in engineering
• The students should design, test and integrate
  softwares, hardwares, instruments, equipments and
  devices.

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• Humanities will be also present in the Project
  Laboratories, observing and investigating
  matters such as ethics scientific and technical
  culture politics ergonomy science, technology
  and society etc
• Motivation for the students become themselves
  consultants and/or entrepreneurs in Systems
  Engineering.

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2.4 Novelties

• Tutorials have been already implemented one
  professor for a group of five students
• Flexibility and unconventional disciplines,
  mainly in the Humanities route
• The student may make his own route in a part of
  the Course. This route should be approved in the
  System Engineering Course Council
• Systems Engineering Week every year starting from
  this year with lectures, seminars, workshops and
  an assessment of the Course.

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3. Facilities

• The Systems Engineering Course uses all the
  computational facilities of the School of
  Engineering of UFMG
• The laboratories used by the Systems Engineering
  Course are those of the Department of Electrical
  Engineering and the Department of Electronics
  Engineering. The special budget of the Course has
  been mainly spent in modernising those
  laboratories.

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4. Systems Engineering as a Profession

• The Brazilian Federal Council of Engineering and
  Architecture has a Resolution dated August, the
  22nd of 2005 in which the activities of a Systems
  Engineer are included in the big field of
  Electrical Engineering www.confea.org.br/serviços
  

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5. Progress

• We are finishing now the third term of the
  Course
• In the two competitions for enrolling in the
  Course the ratio of candidates per position was
  9/1
• www.sistemas.eng.ufmg.br