Students in the Systems Engineering Laboratory of the North Carolina A & T State University are learning human-machine interaction principles, as part of their industrial engineering education, using a teleoperated robot. Working in a human- machine interaction environment is a newly accepted paradigm, shifting from manual-supervisory to cognitive-supervisory tasks involving the complexity of the human-machine interface. This laboratory allows the incorporation of modern technologies associated with human-machine systems in a modern industrial engineering curriculum. Among those, the laboratory (1) exposes the graduate and undergraduate students to a human- machine environment that supports modern engineering design theories, (2) provides the students with an environment to experiment with multi-agent systems (robots, computers, cameras, human operators, etc.), and (3) improves quality of instruction in a cost/effective manner by providing resources for student projects and direct laboratory case studies.
