Abstract
This paper presents the development of a virtual didactic tool for students of mechatronic engineering taking an intelligent system course. The objective of the tool is for students to learn the structures for fuzzy control systems. This tool makes it easier for students to understand the behavior of the membership functions of input and output variables, the evaluation of the set of fuzzy rules, and the method of defuzzification, giving the students the possibility of applying a fuzzy controller in industrial processes using a data acquisition board. The proposed tool was developed with the virtual instrumentation software LabVIEW. It has the advantage that students can manipulate the internal structure of the fuzzy logic control system in a unique window where students can analyze the behavior of internal signals by looking at the response graphs. The fuzzy controller can be easily translated to a real application by using LabVIEW compatible hardware. To have feedback from students on the use of the tool and to understand if this tool allows an improvement in their academic performance, a 2-hour workshop on the proposed application was given to a group of 93 students. At the end of the workshop, a knowledge assessment and a perception survey were applied to the participants. The academic performance achieved by students who were given the workshop using the proposed teaching tool was compared with the academic performance of students who witnessed the workshop using Matlab tools. The statistical analysis of the results obtained for the knowledge assessment shows that the students that had taken the workshop using the proposed teaching tool had better compression of the topic compared to the students that had taken the workshop using the Fuzzy Logic Toolbox provided by Matlab MathWorks. The students that had taken the workshop using the proposed teaching tool obtained a mean grade of 89.63/100, while students that had taken the workshop using Matlab’s tools obtained a mean grade of 69.85/100. Also, the students’ perception of the proposed tool was that it allowed the design of fuzzy control systems in a simple and intuitive way.
Highlights
Software tools such as Matlab and LabVIEW have been widely used in the design, simulation, and implementation of fuzzy logic controller (FLC) because they allow for the evaluation of various membership functions of the input and output variables, as well as different sets of fuzzy inference rules and defuzzification methods. ese tools allow the value of the output variables to be established in the event of changes in the values of input variables, defining the rules and the weights involved for each case, in addition to having a graphic representation of the system’s behavior
One of the disadvantages of using these tools is that they have all the options described above in different windows; if you want to modify the original design of an FLC, you have to navigate through these windows to manipulate the membership functions or in the fuzzy inference rules and use other windows to analyze the effects of these changes
It has low-cost data acquisition devices for FLC experimentation. All these advantages were considered for the design of the Virtual Instrument (VI) that will function as Didactic Educational Tool (DET). e DET works with fuzzy control system structures of one or two input variables and one output variable, allowing users to design applications such as Proportional (P), Integral (I), and ProportionalDerivative-Integral (PID), and fuzzy controllers. is tool was developed using LabVIEW virtual instrumentation software designed by National Instruments Corporation
Summary
One of the global trends in the industrial and educational fields is known as Industry 4.0, which enables the design of intelligent and automated production systems providing digital technologies such as the Internet, integrated sensors, artificial intelligence, and big data. ese technologies allow complex industrial applications [1] focused on satisfying customer needs and production standards in the modern industry [2]. E integration of this software with the acquisition devices allowed the implementation of virtual laboratories for the design, simulation, and experimentation of controllers [14] Another use of the LabVIEW virtual instrumentation software in the educational field is the one proposed in [25], where they used this tool for the development of computer programming skills in the physics area in a course of computer-assisted instrumentation; the effectiveness of the proposal was evaluated through the statistical analysis of questionnaires and responses to interviews, obtaining, as a result, an increase in the knowledge acquired and an increase in motivation and confidence of the students. The Virtual Instrument (VI) on which the DET is based allows students to improve their specific skills related to (1) the increase of experience and intuition in the design of FLCs, (2) the ability to reason, reflect, and systematize facts in the design of FLCs, and (3) adapt to the new educational trend related to the delivery of online courses under Learning Management System (LMS) platforms
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