Project acronym: CLEM Project title: CLoud services for E-learning in Mechatronics technology Project Number: 518656-LLP-1-UK-LEONARDO-LMP Grant Agreement: 2011-4542/001-001 Sub-programme or KA: Leonardo da Vinci Multilateral Projects for Development of Innovation Work Package 7: Application, Implementation & Innovation Deliverable 11: Innovation Stimulation Start date of project: 1 January 2012 Duration: 24 months Organization name of lead contractor for this task: UNICAS Project co-funded by the European Commission within the LLP Leonardo da Vinci program (2007-2013) Dissemination level PU Public PP Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services) RE Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission Services)
CLEM CLoud services for E-learning in Mechatronics technology Application, Implementation & Innovation Task 7.2 : Innovation Stimulation The final Cluster Report "Innovation Stimulation" is specifically dedicated to the aspect of transferability of innovation beyond the sector. It is about the development of concepts for learning communities and intersite collaboration in Europe, and with a special focus on Romania/Bulgaria in the area of mechatronics/industrial engineering. It will analyse the preconditions for remotely accessible practical environments in VET. Document Control WP7: Application, Innovation & Implementation Work Package Leader: UNICAS (Prof. Giorgio Figliolini) File Reference: WP7- Task_7_2_Innovation Stimulation-D11 Date: 18/05/2014 Version: V2 General Comments: Version Control Record Vers. Date Description Author V1.0 30/05/2013 First document delivered to Partners for Joshua Cooper comments and additional content. V1.3 25/07/2013 Document delivered to Partners for comments and additional content. Eng. Pierluigi Rea Prof. Giorgio Figliolini V2 18/05/2014 Approved and final amendments made Prof. Anne James
Innovation Stimulation TABLE OF CONTENT 1. BACKGROUND... 4 2. CLEM SUPPORT FOR INNOVATION STIMULATION AND TRANSFER... 5 3. EVIDENCE OF THE IMPACT OF CLEM... 8 4. COMMERCIAL CASE STUDY - HILDEBRAND...10 5 CONCLUSION...12 APPENDIX A FORM TO REGISTER TO UPLOAD MATERIALS ON CLEM MOODLE...13 APPENDIX B FORM TO REGISTER TO INCLUDE A NEW REMOTE LABORATORY...14 APPENDIX C INSTRUCTIONS TO SET UP A NEW LABORATORY...15 APPENDIX D INSTRUCTIONS TO INSTALL AND CONFIGURE MOODLE ON SERVER...17 APPENDIX E SETTING UP A REMOTE LABORATORY CLOUD SERVER GATEWAY...22
1. BACKGROUND Cloud Learning for Mechatronics has drawn from the nascent Internet of Things field to accomplish the following goals: increase the economic utility of mechatronic equipment making it more attractive to purchase, create and maintain; increased variety of mechatronic equipment available to students, teachers and those studying mechatronic systems; establish standards for the cloud for the purpose of creating an ecosystem with industry, academia and individuals; reducing the complexity and barriers of learning mechatronics making it an approachable subject with hands on learning at the core. These goals are pursued through the platform that has been created to allow equipment, learning material and intellectual property (in the form of software) to be shared and disseminated. There have been efforts to share equipment through the Internet for single purpose (i.e. Google Web Lab) and to introduce the population at large to connected web devices. We are taking this a step further to make the machines programmable and observable from a remote location. Smart is often over used, but has a convenient definition of an intelligent, interconnected and instrumented system. Classical mechatronics has been effectively made intelligent and instrumented machines through the use of electronics and sometimes interconnecting them locally. Our approach has been to increase the interconnectedness of the equipment to better accomplish the goals above and therefore create a smart mechatronic platform. Some of the areas that needed to be overcome have been security, scheduling, standardization of the observation and web based controller unit.
In this deliverable we describe how CLEM supports innovation stimulation and transfer and ;provide user guides for relevant parts provide evidence of impact of CLEM describe commercial solutions that are currently being developed based on CLEM 2. CLEM SUPPORT FOR INNOVATION STIMULATION AND TRANSFER Transferability of innovation occurs through the openness of the CLEM platform, the materials provided and the availability of expert advice and community. The CLEM platform has been developed to be very open. Users gain expertise with the platform through the steps shown below which leads to innovation and possible commercialization. The maturity model in Fig. 1 shows how users can interact with the CLEM platform as they increase in expertise, confidence and innovation.
commercialise attract users to use own platform create own platform, possibly with a different focus create own laboratory to add to our suite alter programs or create new programs to control devices in different ways view programs controlling mechanical devices in the remote laboratories upload new materials view and download materials Fig. 1 - Maturity Model of CLEM Usage leading to Innovation For level 6 in Fig.1, an example of a possible new focus for a commercialisable platform might be a suite of remote 3D printers where new users or customers can send specifications to the printers and have their work printed and returned to them. This is an area we are currently exploring.
CLEM has a number of administrative tools to support users thought their journey towards usage maturity. When a user first wishes to upload materials, s/he must register using a form (Appendix A). This allows credentials to be checked. Similarly when a user requests to add a laboratory s/he must complete a form to register and describe the laboratory (Appendix B). Instructions are available to help a user set up a remote laboratory to integrate with our suite (Appendix C) and also to allow a user to set up a server with Moodle to replicate what we have in CLEM Moodle (Appendix D). Our software is also available to them. Furthermore, users who become stimulated by our approach may create their own a Remote laboratory Cloud Gateway such that users can connect to new remote laboratories (Appendix E) or new devices in the Internet of Things through their own server. This can lead to innovations in services. In order to help users on their journey through the steps listed above, the CLEM platform provides innovative materials such as videos of research projects and interesting applications of Mechatronics. The whole system is self-enhancing because as more people participate, more material will be uploaded. This will increase momentum through the stages of innovation outlined above. Another method of used by the CLEM platform to support learning and encourage stimulation is the inclusion of the Expert Channel and Virtual Meeting facility. This facility can be used in the following ways: users can send questions to experts who will respond; users can schedule and participate in a remote live meeting with an expert; users can schedule structured live meetings amongst themselves; users with sufficient expertise can register to be listed as an expert. This facility is particularly useful for spreading innovation across long distances, for instance across countries.
3. EVIDENCE OF THE IMPACT OF CLEM The area of Romania and Bulgaria has been identified as warranting particular attention to the mechatronics technology[1], as reported in the paper [2],...The impact of mechatronics technology exceeds the economic sphere, the essential social, cultural and others. The future of technological development in Romania will increasingly call upon and depend on mechatronics expertise to provide equipment and specialized skills that will not only add value to the finished products, but do it quickly, accurately, economically and in large volumes. Those involved in learning and training are looking for tools to transform the learning experience, enable learners to become autonomous and enjoy a truly personalized development path). (... Mechatronics education ensures action in thought, defining features of the market economy specialist. Mechatronics interdisciplinary laboratories are the basis for the realization of the principles of "learning by doing ',' education through research." Approaches focus on moving the emphasis from information on the formative side. Educational reality has to be reformulated by: ensuring a balance between innovation and maintenance teaching, insurance of an optimum relation between formal, non formal and informal education, extension of educational processes to the lifetime of the individual [3]. Mechatronics education is essentially a modern education with a strong inter-and trans disciplinary character, but exploratory, with a special emphasis on learning and research. It meets the needs of the labor market...). It is very interesting that one of our partners had difficultly in obtaining requirements information because in the Rousse region of Bulgaria there were few mechatronics companies. However, partly as a result of the CLEM project dissemination, the University of Rousse intend to start a course in 1 Stefan Kartunov Training and development of mechatronics and micro and nano systems technology in technical university of gabrovo, Bulgaria. Proc. of the Intl. Conf. on Advances in Mechanical and Robotics Engineering. AMRE2013, DOI: 10.3850/978-981-07-7965-8_86, pp.71, 76 2 Cristea Luciana, Mechatronic Education -an important way to improve the technological education for young people in Romania, 9th WSEAS International Conference on EDUCATION and EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY (EDU '10) Japan, 2010, ISBN: 978-960-474-232-5, pp:183, 187 3 (Baritz M., Cotoros D., Repanovici A., Rogozea L. Cognitive Virtual Learning Used for Improving the Long Term Handling Skills Proceedings of the 6th WSEAS/IASME International Conference on EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES (EDUTE '10), Tunisia, 2010.
mechatronics. This is a good example of innovation stimulation which should proliferate as graduates emerge who want to put their skills to use to the good of themselves and the economy. It is likely that in the future the region will see many more mechatronics firms. As we have progressed with our dissemination, teacher training courses and knowledge development, other examples of innovation stimulation have occurred. These include: 1) Request to use CLEM in activity led learning at Coventry University (Head of Department Dr Chrisina Jayne) 2) Request to use the CLEM approach as a focus in a student mobility programme between Australia and Europe (led by Dr Yang Dai, Coventry University) 3) Request to use CLEM concepts in a new project on collaborative integration of building engineering data and systems (led by Dr Georgios Kapogiannis) 4) Request to use CLEM concepts to enhance teaching at HUST, Wuhan, China and even to roll out to other institutionsinchina (led by Prof L Gao) 5) Exploration of commercially viable innovations at the establishment of our industrial partner Hildebrand. These innovations are explored further in section 4.
4. COMMERCIAL CASE STUDY - HILDEBRAND As an outcome of our work and understanding of the requirements of end-users, we have come up with a solution that has commercial elements to it. Fundamentally we believe there is an opportunity for an ecosystem that distributes runtime (binary) software to a variety of hardware platforms for mechatronic purposes. This allows for developers to: learn and build upon the work of other developers, especially promoting collaboration and driver libraries for the variety of peripheral devices that interface with mechatronic base boards; provide a platform for the dissemination of applications that will provide developers with the facility to license embedded software as they deem fit, e.g. open source or proprietary; develop both horizontal and vertical solutions that work with other complementary solutions within an App Store, i.e. environmental sensing mixed with energy sensing to have the basis for an energy efficiency solution; Not to overuse the App Store cliche, but the opportunity is indeed an App Store for embedded mechatronic systems. Hildebrand, an SME that is part of this consortium, has also been exploring the exploitation of the ideas developed in the CLEM project and transferring these to new areas. There are two ideas for future exploitation: integrating the CLEM ecosystem with the launch of a range of energy sensing modules; and the development of a remote 3D printing service based on CLEM architecture The ongoing CLEM ecosystem will be bootstrapped by Hildebrand with the launch of a range of energy sensing modules to run on their PIC embedded device. There are nearly 20,000 devices in circulation and distribution agreements with two other companies. This initial thrust should be able to provide the operating revenue required as well as making a commitment to be dependent on the ecosystem for distribution of its software. Ongoing
there will be further recruitment of companies that should value the ecosystem and make similar supporting commitments. Both Libelium and IBM have been approached and we think that within 4 months we will have at least one of those organisations driving a community of Arduino or Atmel based solutions forward. Within 6 months we foresee offering a payment solution and developer revenue stream from the platform. Eventually a fee will be taken from each piece of software distributed that will pay for the operation of the platform. In the meantime, investment and sponsorship is being done by companies like Hildebrand who have an interest in this innovative way of distributing software. Up to this point the project and Hildebrand have been developing a critical mass of material and reference designs to upload into an initial launch of the CLEM App Store. Final preparations are being made with the assistance of students that used some of the initial material. In the final partner meeting Joshua Cooper, CEO of Hildebrand, demonstrated a CLEM development at his company. He showed a 3D printer, FlashForge, which has been enhanced with three Stepper Motors and connected to an Arduino microcontroller. The Arduino micro controller can run an uploaded program to control the Stepper motors such that a 3D print can be produced on prescription. Hildebrand have developed a queuing system that can pipeline the dataflow to the Arduino-controlled printer. Joshua Cooper demonstrated how the printer can be controlled remotely (see Image 1). When fully developed users will be able to submit a job remotely, be given a timeslot and then will be able to log in and watch their job being printed during the given timeslot. This project is evidence of the transferability of the CLEM innovation and should become an avenue of future commercial exploitation. Currrently some students are helping with the development of this potential exploitation. The system that is being used for the ecosystem will be made open source and therefore will be freely available to anyone to download and create their own platform. By design the value is in the community and content that will be within the CLEM App Store. Software produced by members, whether those are professional, academic or hobbyists, will remain the property of the creator and the platform will allow them to distribute under GPL, Creative Commons, other open licenses or a closed paid for license. The community will be
owned by the companies that are taking on the initial operational costs. Given that the software is open source, anyone wishing to take on those costs can create a rival ecosystem. The intellectual property for the 3D printing will rest with the parties making the investment in the systems development. The intellectual ideas in this area at this stage are shared and any member of the consortium is free to use them for future developments. Image 1 Demonstration of 3D Printing Development at Partner Meeting (Clermont-Ferrand November 2013) 5 CONCLUSION CLEM provides a number of features that support innovation stimulation. These include the availability and quality of material as well as the availability of experts and a virtual meeting space. CLEM also allows expertise and skills to be built by enabling users to make their own remote laboratories and add them to our suite and also to make their own Cloud. The results of the CLEM project have great potential for impact. Already we can see areas which will benefit. These include being used in education to provide more stimulating, engaging and convenient activities. Within education, interest has been shown from teachers both in the fields of mechatronics and in other areas who see potential for transfer. Commercially we see impact in the area of the Internet of Things, particularly in energy monitoring and sensing and in 3D printing services. Some developments are already happening in these areas.
APPENDIX A (Back to Top) FORM TO REGISTER TO UPLOAD MATERIALS ON CLEM MOODLE CLEM PROJECT MOODLE REGISTRATION END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Coventry University Non-Commercial Non-Software License for the CLEM Project Moodle registration. Copyright (C), 2014, The CLEM Consortium. Name:...... Surname:......... Date of birth:......... Institution:......... E-mail:......... Teaching material:......... Topic title:......... Content description:................................................................................................... Date:... Signature:...
APPENDIX B FORM TO REGISTER TO INCLUDE A NEW REMOTE LABORATORY (Back to Top) CLEM PROJECT LABORATORY REGISTRATION END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Coventry University Non-Commercial Non-Software License for the CLEM Project Laboratory registration. Copyright (C), 2014, The CLEM Consortium. Name:......... Surname:......... Date of birth:......... Institution:......... E-mail:......... Laboratory type:......... Laboratory features:.................. Date:... Signature:...
APPENDIX C (BACK TO TOP) INSTRUCTIONS TO SET UP A NEW LABORATORY To create your own remote laboratory and add it to our suite, you must first apply using the form link on the front page of the remote laboratory site. If your application is accepted, we will send you a link, from where you need to download the remote server software. To be able to set up a remote laboratory you need the following: System Requirements Hardware A PC to be the server host (could be a Rapsberry Pi) Arduino board to control the devices Various electro-mechanical devices Software Linux Web Server: Apache (recommended), IIS Database: MySQL (recommended), PostgreSQL, MS-SQL, Oracle.
Follow the steps below to set up a remote laboratory to add to our suite. 1) Create the remote laboratory 2) Connect Arduino board to PC and test locally 3) Set PC up to be a Web Server 4) Download the zip file from the link we sent to you. 5) Go to terminal 6) Unzip the file and move it to /var/www 7) Now you should see the folder /var/www/arduino 8) Connect your Arduino device to the to your PC 9) If you have successfully connected the device you should see the file in /dev directory. In order to check, run the following command, ls l /dev/ttyacm0 This will reveal the ownership and the permissions of the device. 10) You have to change the permissions of the Arduino: chmod 777 /dev/ttyacm0 && chown pi /dev/ttyacm0 11) Then you have to change the permissions of the Arduino folder in order to accept instructions from our server: chmod 777 /var/www/arduino * 12) Set up an IP camera to stream video of the remote laboratory. Follow camera manufacturer instructions to do this. 13) Note the local IP addresses for the camera and the server. 14) In your network router you now need to use port forwarding to state that you will use TCP on a specified port for the remote server and on another port for the camera. 15) Next get in touch with us at contact@clem-project.eu to tell us the IP address of your remote server. We will then add this to our database and your remote laboratory will become part of our suite. Any problems, please get in touch!
APPENDIX D (Back to Top) INSTRUCTIONS TO INSTALL AND CONFIGURE MOODLE ON SERVER If you wish to set up your own Cloud, like the CLEM Cloud, you must have a Web server. Then you need to download Moodle. Moodle is a learning platform designed to provide educators, administrators and learners with a single robust, secure and integrated system to create personalised learning environments. You can download the software onto your own web server or ask one of our knowledgable Moodle Partners to assist you. 4 Moodle is built by the Moodle project which is led and coordinated by Moodle HQ, an Australian company of 30 developers which is financially supported by a network of 60 Moodle Partner service companies worldwide. The CLEM project is based on the Moodle platform. The teachers and trainers in Mechatronics that will use the CLEM concept have to fulfill the following hardware requirements: 1.Install and configure Moodle v2.4 System requirements Disk space: 160MB only for the installation. You need additional space in order to store the materials. Memory: 256MB of RAM. Moodle can support 10 to 20 concurrent users for every 1GB of RAM but it depends on the rest of the server s hardware. Operating System Web Server: Apache (recommended), IIS PHP with minimum version the 5.3.2 Database: MySQL (recommended), PostgreSQL, MS-SQL, Oracle. Installation Instructions Download Moodle from: http://download.moodle.org/ Unzip and upload files on the document root (you need to have administrator s privileges). For Linux systems it is /var/www/{give a name for Moodle s directory} -> i.e. /var/www/moodle2.4 will be www.yourdomain.com/moodle2.4 Prevent server users from editing the files. On terminal, log-in as root and then: -> # chown -R root /path/to/moodle (for Linux) -> # chmod -R 0755 /path/to/moodle (for Linux) 4 http://docs.moodle.org/26/en/about_moodle
Log-in to the DB server and create an empty database: mysql> CREATE DATABASE moodle DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci; (For MySQL server) Add a user with the minimum possible permissions. mysql> GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES,DROP,INDEX,ALTER ON moodle.* TO moodleuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword'; i.e. You created a user with username: moodleuser ansd password: yourpassword (You need to choose a stronger password) Create a directory that allows Moodle to store its files BUT it is wise to place the folder outside the document root i.e. document root is: /var/www/{whatever folder/file is in here, allows web access} i.e. Outside document root: Every file/folder outside of the /var/www for instance /var or /home/username Create the folder and set the permissions for the users. sudo mkdir /path/to/moodledata sudo chmod 0777 /path/to/moodledata If your server supports Access Control List it is recommended to set following permissions, for example if your Apache server uses account www-data: sudo chmod -R +a "www-data allow read,delete,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /path/to/moodledata Fig. 1 Instructions Document root explanation Web based installer Just go to the main directory of Moodle using a web browser Remember: if you placed Moodle in /var/www/moodle then the URL is www.youdomain.com/moodle
if you placed Moodle in /var/www/mynewmoodle then the URL is www.yourdomain.com/mynewmoodle For additional information regarding the installation of Moodle please read the official documentation on: http://docs.moodle.org/24/en/installing_moodle and follow the instruction about Cron and Backups. Fig. 2 - Administrator s tasks The Administrator s tasks (Fig. 2) are usually located on the bottom left side of the screen. Those are the features that the administrator can use in order to add/remove functionality from Moodle.
2. Adding users Once the Moodle based system is installed and established, the administrator of the system has to specify the number of users, their rights and the role they ll have. How to add a new user is shown on the next figure Fig. 3. Fig. 3 - Instructions how to add a new user to Moodle
Fig. 4 - Procedure for: define, edit (or add) roles to the user When you have set up Moodle on your Server you have effectively made your own Cloud for the users you approve or for guests if you set Moodle such that guests can view and download materials, as we have done in CLEM Moodle.
APPENDIX E (BACK TO TOP) SETTING UP A REMOTE LABORATORY CLOUD SERVER GATEWAY Now you may wish to add the remote laboratory gateway which will reside on your main web server. To do this first complete the form shown in Fig 1. If your application is approved you will be sent a two zip file links, one for the remote laboratory gateway (this is for the software which resides on your main server) and one for a remote laboratory server (this is software to reside on the remote server which connects to the Arduino). Then follow the instructions below. CLEM PROJECT LABORATORY REGISTRATION END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Coventry University Non-Commercial Non-Software Licence for the CLEM Project Laboratory registration. Copyright (C), 2014, The CLEM Consortium. Name:......... Surname:......... Date of birth:......... Institution:......... E-mail:......... I wish to set up a Remote Laboratory Gateway on my server and would like to receive software and advice on how to do this. Date:... Signature:... Fig. 1 - Remote Laboratory Cloud Gateway Application [Type text] Page 22
For the main server remote laboratory gateway software: 1) Download the zip file from the link we sent to you. 2) Go to terminal 3) Unzip the file and move it to /var/www For the remote laboratory software: System Requirements Hardware A Pc to be the server host Arduino board to control the devices Various electro-mechanical devides Software Linux Web Server: Apache (recommended), IIS Database: MySQL (recommended), PostgreSQL, MS-SQL, Oracle. Instructions 1) Create the remote laboratory 2) Connect Arduino board to PC and test locally 3) Set PC up to be a Web Server 4) Download the zip file from the link we sent to you. 5) Go to terminal 6) Unzip the file and move it to /var/www 7) Now you should see the folder /var/www/arduino 8) Connect your Arduino device to the to your PC 9) If you have successfully connected the device you should see the file in /dev directory. In order to check, run the following command, ls l /dev/ttyacm0 This will reveal the ownership and the permissions of the device. 10) You have to change the permissions of the Arduino: [Type text] Page 23
chmod 777 /dev/ttyacm0 && chown pi /dev/ttyacm0 11) Then you have to change the permissions of the Arduino folder in order to accept instructions from our server: chmod 777 /var/www/arduino * 12) Set up an IP camera to stream video of the remote laboratory. Follow camera manufacturer instructions to do this. 13) Note the local IP addresses for the camera and the server. 14) In your network router you now need to use port forwarding to state that you will use TCP on a specified port for the remote server and on another port for the camera. 15) Next go back to the main server and in the mysql table called Station in the Arduino database, add the name of the laboratory, the IP address of the remote server and the IP address of the remote camera. Now you are ready to use your new Cloud E-learning system and remote laboratory! [Type text] Page 24