Evolution in the Education of Software Engineers: Online Course on Cyberphysical Systems with Remote Access to Robotic Devices

Abstract

The objective of this work is to address, from the educational perspective, the trends in the software engineerring discipline, which rely on a significant increase in the use of remotely accessible and remotely controlled embedded devices. The paper presents an approach and experiences with introducing robotic devices accessible online to a course on Cyberphysical Systems in an undergraduate Software Engineering program. A closer look at both technologies, online labs and cyberphysical systems education, reveals that they are not in sync. Remote labs have embraced a wide variety of science and engineering disciplines, but they are not popular in software engineering. On the other hand, software engineering education, being crucial to the development of cyberphysical systems has not focused on such systems by any measure. This project and paper aim at addressing this gap.