Most of our nations's graduating electrical engineering seniors have not been challenged to integrate their knowledge obtained from a diverse range of course work. This critical problem is addressed by a pilot project for the establishment of a new capstone laboratory course and its associated Laboratory for Dynamic System Integration for teachings seniors system integration concepts. The new laboratory consists of a network of six modularized lab stations. Each lab station consist of a SUN 3/140 workstation, a 6-axis PUMA 260-series robot arm, and CCD camera with a vision processing unit. The Ethernet connection ties all the equipment together, to the file server and the engineering-wide computer network as well. The objectives and salient features of this laboratory course are: o To provide a capstone experience for undergraduate students in electrical engineering. o To utilize the state-of-the-art computer-controlled robotic systems with integrated vision sensors (CCD cameras) as an instructional vehicle for educating undergraduate students in systems integration concepts. o To provide a system facility for some undergraduate independent projects and future course development. Since all the equipment is commercially available, this experience can be shared with other universities. The results of this pilot project will be reported in professional journals.
