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The World is Virtually Flat New Directions in
Online Collaborative Engineering, Research
Education

• Tarek Sobh
• UNIVERSITY OF BRIDGEPORT

REV Conference
29th June 2006
Maribor, Slovenia
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Introduction

• With the advent of the Internet
• The World today is a Global Village
• Facilitating Collaboration for Innovation
  Research
• E learning and education
• E Conferencing
• Interaction with far removed environments
• Enabling real-time distributed/scattered work
  environments

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Virtual Collaboration

• Strategic Sourcing/Outsourcing
• Global Supply Chains
• Virtual Scattered Teams
• Socio-economic Impact

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Population Impact

• On the fly media/news postings/downloads
• Voice over IP VoIP
• Algorithmic Trading
• Atom feeds / RSS
• Blogs, Instant Messaging, Global Video
• Impact on democracy, political movements,
  diplomacy global economics

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Population Impact (Contd...)

• Global industries outsourcing
• Wireless impact individuals as
  sending/receiving mobile centers anywhere on the
  globe
• Tele-automation, Tele-robotics, Tele-control,
  Tele-commerce

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Online Distance Education

• Online Distance Education is a major part of the
  current education system
• Started as an internal exercise to share and
  discuss ideas
• Ever growing need for part-time education
• 213 Universities offering online courses at
  various levels and disciplines in the US
• Majority of the online courses are non-technical
• Lacking laboratory based courses

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Need for Online Education

• Part time course work
• Working class willing to pursue higher education
• Social responsibilities
• Current socio-political situation
• National and International demand

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Distance Engineering Education

• Accredited engineering degrees
• Under-graduate and Graduate level
• Computer Engg, Electrical Engg Mechanical Engg
• Comprehensive laboratory based courses.

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Partnerships

• Great value of American Engg. degrees overseas
• Partnership with foreign University/Institution
  providing
• Infrastructure
• Teaching support
• Examination facilities
• Closer to the student concentration
• Helps in better delivery of courses

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Online Distance Laboratories

• Using Automation and Telerobotic (controlling
  devices from a distance) systems
• Real-time laboratory experience via the internet
• Tele-operation of Mitsubishi Movemaster
• RISCBOT A Web Enabled Autonomous Navigational
  Robot
• Tele-operation of the FESTO Process Controller

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1. Tele-operation of Movemaster

• Can be used in 3 modes
• Evaluation mode
• Teacher mode
• Student mode

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1. Tele-operation of Movemaster (Contd...)
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2. RISCBOT

• Modular 802.11b enabled mobile autonomous robot
• Navigation based on a visual recognition
  algorithm
• Controlled via the internet to navigate to
  desired destination
• Online users receive real-time video feedback
  from the robot

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RISCBOT

• Waits for command from the server.
• Wall clinging robot.
• Image processing program checks for doors.
• Uses Ultrasonic sensors for obstacle avoidance.
• PC acts as central decision maker.

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RISCBOT In Action
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RISCBOT Control Website
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FESTO Process Controller

• Providing telerobotic operability of the FESTO
  process control machine by interfacing it with
  the Mitsubishi Movemaster robot.

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E - Conferences

• CISSE International Joint Conferences on
  Computer, Information, Systems Sciences, and
  Engineering ( http//www.cisse2006.org )
• The worlds first Engineering / Computing
  econference
• Completely conducted Online in Real-time

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E Conferences (Contd...)

• Eliminates the need for travel time out of office
• Authors present their papers online using a
  micro-phone
• Lessens the economic burden on Institutions
  Researchers
• Participants can select presentations they would
  like to attend from the schedule ahead of time

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Conclusion

• On the fly communications
• Real-time anywhere and anytime updates
• Distance learning
• Remote business operations and management
• Global implications on population, commerce and
  governments

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THANK YOU