The potential benefits of networked control systems are tremendous, as they can be easily upgraded by just including new components (i.e., sensors, actuators, or controllers), avoiding any further modifications to their structure. A critical approach to unleash such potential benefits is event-based control, where the system output turns to be sampled on demand, instead of being sampled constantly at rigid periods of time. This paper analyzes from a bibliometric point of view the literature published for the last twenty years on event-based control, identifying the most relevant articles, authors, institutions, and journals. Moreover, the principal topics, motivations, and problems faced by the researchers are discussed, identifying distinct challenges and opportunities for future research.

Some of the most critical competencies students need to acquire to become control engineers require performing practices under actual industrial conditions. This means that they must not only master the theoretical aspects of the discipline but also acquire skills and attitudes to face unpredictable real-world situations. Software tools such as Matlab/Simulink are widely used to train the design and validation of controllers, but they fail to provide real industrial contexts. Nowadays, there are 3D simulation tools that support recreating industrial environments to a remarkable extent, making them very attractive for university courses. Nevertheless, their application in engineering courses is scarce yet. This paper presents a methodological framework for seizing into competency-based courses one of these simulation tools, called Factory I/O. Our approach was evaluated in a master’s course on Industrial PID Control at Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso (PUCV) in Chile. The evaluation comprised the qualitative analysis of students’ grades over four consecutive course editions and the qualitative study of students’ opinion on Factory I/O educational value. The objectives of our evaluation were (i) testing if Factory I/O helped students develop skills hard to practice in academic contexts, such as detecting faults or recognizing the importance of having well-defined operation protocols; (ii) validating our methodology for competency-based courses; and (iii) surveying our students about Matlab/Simulink and Factory I/O strengths/weaknesses to teach control engineering. According to the results, (a) Factory I/O complements Simulink by providing an adequate virtual environment to learn the aforementioned skills; and (b) our methodology supports courses’ continuous improvement through the statistical analysis of students’ achievements at different abstraction levels.

The use of mobile robots for teaching automatic control is becoming more popular in engineering curricula. Currently, many robot simulators with high-graphical capabilities can be easily used by instructors to teach control engineering. However, the use of real robots is not as straightforward as simulations. There are many hardware and software details that must be considered before applying control. This paper presents the development of an easy-to-use platform for teaching control of mobile robots. The laboratory has been carefully designed to conceal all technical issues, such as communications or the localization that do not address the fundamental concepts of control engineering. To this end, a position sensor based on computer vision has been developed to provide the positions of the robots on the platform in real time. The Khepera IV robot has been selected for this platform because of its flexibility and advanced built-in sensors but the laboratory could be easily adapted for similar robots. The platform offers the opportunity to perform laboratory practices to test many different control strategies within a real experimental multi-agent environment. A methodology for using the platform in the lab is also provided.

The increasing popularity of distance education poses exciting new challenges. In particular, current pedagogical paradigms, such as competency-based education, require students’ continuous evaluation. That is, to master skills, students need to receive constant feedback to guide their experimentation processes. However, teaching teams are usually under-dimensioned to support the large number of students that online courses usually have. This paper presents the approach we have adopted at the National University of Distance Education to overcome this problem for the case of computer programming practices, which complements human evaluation with an automatic assessment system. The paper describes our system and reports its benefits with an empirical study from 2011 to 2018 that involved 14,944 students.

Contribution: A competency assessment framework that enables learning analytics for course monitoring and continuous improvement. Our work fills the gap in systematic methods for competency assessment in higher education. Background: Many institutions are shifting toward competency-based education (CBE), thus encouraging their educators to start evaluating their students under this paradigm. Previous research shows that structured assessment models are fundamental in guiding educators toward this adoption. Intended Outcomes: An assessment model for CBE that is easy to adopt and use, while facilitating the application of learning analytics techniques. Application Design: The new framework considerably extends a prior model we proposed three years ago. Two engineering competency-based courses used the framework for assessment. Assessment rubrics were prepared and used for evaluating and collecting the students’ data progressively, thus enabling the use of learning analytics for decision-making. Findings: Thanks to the model: 1) students received a detailed report of their achievements, including a thorough explanation and justification of the evaluation criteria and 2) instructors could improve the course and provide objective evidence of their actions to quality assurance agencies. As a result, the framework is presently being used in 15 courses taught at eight different university degrees at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso (PUCV).