Introduction

We will work with traditional topics within Industrial IT and Automation (Database Systems, DAQ, OPC, Sensors, Control Systems and Theory, PID, Modelling, System Identification, State Estimation, MPC, etc.), but in addition we will put these topics in a wider concept and see how these traditional topics can be applied to and used within concepts like Industry 4.0, Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, Machine Learning, Smart Technology, Web Technology, etc.

Course Registration (applies to both campus and online students)

Note! In order to pass this course: The Quiz for each Lab Assignment and the Web Site where you present your work for the different Labs need to be approved. In addition, the Attendance needs to be approved (Campus Students: more than 70% attendance, Online Students: Join the Lab Gathering).

Feedback: The quizzes will automatically set a score between 0-100%. If you want, You will get a short feedback after each lab. In addition, you can demonstrate your systems and get additional feedback on your GUI, code, etc. whenever you like in Class/Lab Gathering/Teams.

 

Do you have Questions or need Help when not in Class? - In this course Microsoft Teams will be used for communication, questions, guiadance, assistance, etc. Very often someone else is wondering about the same as you - or perhaps someone else has experienced the same thing and found a solution for the problem? Need help outside normal office hours? Perhaps a fellow student can help you if you ask your questions here? For example, if you have installation problems, etc., a fellow student can usually respond better than the supervisor can (outside scheduled hours, evenings, weekends, etc.). You also learn a lot from helping each other.

 

Below we see an overview of the course contents:

This course has a Practical Approach (in form of Lab Work/Small Case Projects):  We will create real-life Systems built from pieces/topics already learned (theory) in other courses, see a greater picture, not only the small pieces. The course is based on Problem-based Learning (PBL) principles. Flipped Classroom: You prepare for lab at home and get help and guidance in class. Lots of written Tutorials and Videos are available. This course will be like playing with Lego. The instructions are only “half-finished”, the rest is up to you. Explore and be Creative! Feel free to use previous work as a foundation, etc. You have already learn all the theory needed in order to start your engineering work, now you need to apply these theoretical skills on practical applications.

 

Course Overview (PowerPoint)

We will mostly work with well-known Software and Programming languages like LabVIEW, MATLAB, Python, Visual Studio/C#, SQL Server/SQL, but we will also introduce some new cloud based software and services.

Main purpose with the course: Get experience with practical problem solving using theory, software, etc. you have learned in previous courses. The learning will be through small practical case projects.

Topics: Industrial IT, Automation, Process Control, Control Systems, System Identification, Systems and Control Engineering, PID Control, State Estimation, Modelling and Simulation, MATLAB, Python, LabVIEW, Visual Studio, C#, Monitoring, DAQ and Data Logging, Sensor Technology, IoT/IIoT, Home Automation, Programming, Industry 4.0, Machine learning, Cloud Hosting and Computing, etc.

The course contains practical lab work about modeling, simulation, programming and control of industrial processes. There will be 3 different Labs.

You are allowed to use previous work in other courses as a starting point, i.e., previous examples, lab assignments, code examples, etc. In addition, lots of tutorials and code examples are provided for each of the assignments, which you can use as a starting point.

There will be no ordinary lectures, only practical lab work. The theory needed in this course is based on the theory you have already learned in other courses.

Note! All Lab Work is mandatory! - meaning you need to be in the laboratory at the scheduled hours (campus students), while the online students need to do most of the lab work outside campus and then join the lab gathering at the end of the semester.

 

The Video below gives an introduction to this course:

Note! Dates, etc. in the video may not be correct. See the web page for updated information. Lab 3 has also been removed from the syllabus.

 

Software

In this course we will use lots of different software packages. Most of them have you used in other courses. List of Software needed (newest versions available recommended):

• LabVIEW - Graphical Progragamming. Easy-to use Hardware integration
• MATLAB - Design, Simulation and Visualization Tool
• Python - General purpose programming language
• Visual Studio/C# - Popular Programming Environment
• SQL Server - Database System from Microsoft
• ERwin - Database Modelling Tool
• Arduino - Open source Hardware/Software Electronics/Prototyping Platform
• Fritzing - Open source software for design of electronics hardware and creating circuit diagrams. You need to use Fritzing for designing or documentation of your electrical circuits.
• Windows Azure - Cloud Computing
• Visual Studio Code Visual Studio Code is a simple and easy to use program, and are well suited for creating HTML pages. Small-scale version of Visual Studio.
• WinSCP or FileZilla - FTP program for transfering files between local computer and a remote Web Server

(other specialized software might also be needed in some of the labs).

 

 

Hardware

All hardware is available in the laboratory. It is recommended that you buy some of the recommended hardware for personal use, especially online students, but also campus students since its makes it easier to work with the lab assignments outside the scheduled hours in the laboratory.

You need the following hardware in this course:

• PC
• Arduino - You need (strongly reccomended) to buy your own Arduino, preferably Arduino UNO (or Arduino MEGA).
• Sensors and Components - You need to buy (strongly reccomended) these small-scale sensors and components, some are available in, e.g., Arduino Starter Kit.

You should already have an Arduino used in the course "Hard/Soft Sensors in Process Measurements".

We will also use hardware available in the laboratory, such as Air Heater, USB-6008 DAQ device, etc.

Multimeter, Screwdriver 2.5mm, batteries, USB cables, network cables and wires, breadboard, tools, etc. are also nice to have (these things can be bought "everywhere").

Here you find a complete Hardware list.

 

 

Course Schedule

Tuesdays 12:15-16:00, room C-222 (we will also use C-139a as an extra room if needed). Make sure to register your Attendance in each session in class.

Week	#	Task	Resources and Information
34	1	Lab1	Industry 4.0 and Automation
35	2	cont.
36	3	cont.
37	4	cont.
38	6	cont.
39	5	cont.	Make sure you are able to connect to the web server and upload your files in good time before the deadline!
40	7	cont.	Submission Lab 1 (Deadline Sunday): Create Web Site (Deliver in Canvas) and complete Quiz 1 (The Attendance Key will be given in Canvas on Tuesday)
41	8	Lab2	Internet of Things (IoT) Control System
42	9	cont.
43	10	cont.
44	11	cont.
45	12	cont.
46	13	cont.	Submission Lab 2 (Deadline Sunday): Update Web Site (Deliver in Canvas) and complete Quiz 2 (The Attendance Key will be given in Canvas on Tuesday)
Lab Gathering for Online Students - When: Week 47 (room C-222): Tuesday 2020.11.17 + Wednesday 2020.11.18 Time (both days): 09:00-16:00 (but you can come earlier and stay longer)
Final Delivery: Finalizing and Deliver the Final Web Site (Deliver in Canvas) Deadline: 2020.12.13

 

 

Attendance

Note! All Lab Work at USN is mandatory! - This means you need to be in the Laboratory (C-222) at the scheduled hours. The Campus Students need to have an Attendance > 70%, while the Online Students need to join the Lab Gathering (2 days). If the campus students don't have enough attendance at the end of the semester, they need to join the Lab Gathering as well.

Attend for Today's Session. You need to register your attendance each time in class. The attendance registration can only be done in class between the start time and the end time as shown on the schedule above. A new Attendance Key will be given in class in the beginning of each session.

Before you attend for a Session, you need to Register for the course (first time only!). You also need to use the same E-mail address every time, since the E-mail address is your unique User Name.

You can check your attendance here (Note! You may need to reopen this link after you have logged in in order to refresh the web page).. You are personally responsible for checking that the attendance has been correctly registered in the system after each session. If problems occur, ask one of the instructors right away.

 

 

Technical Background Resources

The technical foundation for this course are the following topics:

• Industrial IT
• Automation and Control
• Software Engineering
• Programming with Visual Studio/C#, LabVIEW and MATLAB
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Cloud Hosting and Computing
• Industry 4.0
• Database Systems
• Data Acquisition (DAQ)
• SCADA
• OPC
• Datalogging and Monitoring
• Arduino
• Web Programming, like HTML, ASP.NET, etc.
• etc.

Click on these topics above and you will find lots of background information, training material, videos, and other resoures that may help you solve the assignments.

 

 

Lab Gathering

Lab Gathering for Online Students/Industry Master Students

Purpose: Finishing the Lab Assignments using available Hardware in the Laboratory. Most of the Lab Assignments can be done at home/outside campus, but the final system needs to be finished and tested on the real equipments, such as the Air Heater, etc. The Lab Gathering is only 2 days, so most of the work needs to be carried out in advance. You must work with the course each week throughout the semester in order to achieve the desired results. In that way it is important that you are well prepared when you meet in the Lab Gathering.

Activities: Self-paced work in the Laboratory (Individually/Group-based) It is important that you do as much as possible in advance! - otherwise you will be very busy in the Lab Gathering Week! 

Demonstration: Finished with one of the Lab? Each of you should shortly demonstrate the final results (not each individual tasks but the overall final results where all the hardware and software are put together to a fully functional system) to me when you are finished with the different labs.

 

The Lab Gathering is compulsory. If you for some reason cannot attend these days, please send me an e-mail so we can make special arrangements.

 

 

Web Site

Each student should create a Web Site. The Web Site should briefly present your Lab Work for each of the 3 assignments. You should present the final implementation and results for the overall system (for all 3 assignments) not all tiny details!

This course has the following deliveries in this course.

1. Deliver Web page that gives an overview of Lab 1
2. Deliver Web page that gives an overview of Lab 2
3. Delive Final Web Site Delivery (No additional feedback given if approved. It will be pointed out what you need to improve if you dont get approved. Then you have one more time to get aproved).

The Web pages for the different labs are milestones towards the final web site which should be delivered at the end of the semester. In that way things can be refined and improved in iterations throughout the semester. These sub-goals will help you work throughout the semester, week by week. You will also receive a short feedback on the submitted works. In that way you will not get any surprises when it comes to the final submission at the end of the semester. Deadlines: Se Course Schedule above.

These deliveries and deadlines apply for both campus and online students. The online students should expect to do some minor upgrades/adjustments of these webpages after the Lab Gathering.

Web Site Contents:

You should use the Web Server (web01.usn.no) available at the University. It should be a basic HTML page with title, text, figures, tables, hyperlinks, etc. Styling and formating shall be done using CSS.

You are free to choose the design and contents of the Web Site, but you may choose to use the same structure as a standard technical report/article: Introduction, Problem Description, Material and Methods, Results, Discussions, Conclusions and References.

You should include common Web Site/HTML features like Hyperlinks (both internal links to other web pages created by you and link to external web pages), Images, HTML Tables, HTML Lists (ordered and/or unordered), CSS, etc.

The final Web Site should also have an appealing and intuitive user interface. CSS can be used for layout and styling if needed.

You may also include one or more videos, e.g., one or more videos that give an overview of the applications you have developed during the lab work.

Note! Pretend that you are creating a real-life system on behalf of a customer or something - don't present it as a school project. Avoid using phrases like "This is a scool project", "I learned a lot from this assignment", etc.

 

Getting Started

Get Started by Logging into https://web01order.usn.no

Your URL will be: https://web01.usn.no/~studentnumber (replace <studentnumber> with your 6 digits number)

For more information: Web Server User Guide (pdf) + Video (YouTube)

 

Tools for Web Site Development

• Visual Studio Code Visual Studio Code is a simple and easy to use program, and are well suited for creating HTML pages. Small-scale version of Visual Studio.
• WinSCP or FileZilla - FTP program for transfering files between local computer and a remote Web Server

Make sure to validate your Web Site (i.e., do you follow the latest HTML 5 standards?): http://validator.w3.org

 

Video: USN Web Server Overview (web01.usn.no):

Note! You may need to set proper Read/Write Properties for both your root folder and for the public_html folder by right-clicking and select Properties on these folders in your FTP program.

 

 

Final Web Site ("Report") Delivery

The Final Web Site ("Report") should present and give a short overview of your work and results.

In order to get the Final Web Site (and the course) approved (the end of the semester), the web site needs to fullfill the following criteria:

• The web site should have appropriate Contents (presenting the results from the Lab Work Assignments)
• The web site should have good Structure
• The web site should have good Design and Layout
• The web site should be Userfriendly and Intuitive
• The web site should include some of the basic HTML features (see list below)

Approval: Note! If you you don't get approved the first time, you will get only one new attempt to get the web page approved (within a given timeframe), so make sure to do it properly. The approval will be based on individual and personal prerequisites for solving the assignments, but it must of course be above a given minimum.

• Prototype: Your final work should be on a "prototype" level, which mean it don't need to function 100% correctly. All systems have shortcomings and bugs. You don't need to focus on all tiny details (unless you want and/or have time to do it), make sure to focus on the "big picture". It is also important to learn how to distinguish between important details and unnecessary details. You are allowed to use previous code and existing examples (code reuse), etc. as a foundation for your work. In that way you will save lots of time.
• Level of Details: The Laboratory Assignment contains lots of tiny details that you should do, but all of them are not necessarily needed to be documented on the Web Site ("Report"). It is important to keep an eye out for details as well, because some details don't necessarily take longer time to implement (examples: a simple and intuitve user interface, include units where necessary, avoid using words or variables like "Test1", etc.). In general, use "common sense" to find out what should be required to document and not.
• "Good enough": In this course, the will to learn is more important than the ability to learn. You could say your efforts are more important than the results, and as long as I can see that you have done your best within the given timeframes, then it's "good enough".
• Planning: Planning the work you are going to perform is also important. Proper Planning save you for a lot of extra work. Remember: Sloppy and unstructured work does not save time, it only causes things to take twice as long time.
• Working method: In a practical laboratory course like this, efforts count equally as the final results. In other courses, where a final exam counts 100%, the results counts 100% (It's enough to have one bad day in order to fail). So, it is much easier to pass this course than many other courses, but it requires steady and structured work over time, good planning, etc. We also have many measurement points (deadlines/deliveries) along the way that makes it easier to correct the way you do things.
• Equations: It is difficult and time consuming to implement equations on a web page, so it is recommended that you dont show equations, or keep it at an absolute minimum.

 

HTML suggestions for Final Web Site:

The final web site should present and give an overview of your work and should typically include some of the following HTML features:

• 3 or more .html (or .php) pages. Typically, each of the 3 lab assignments should have their own .html (or .php) file
• 3 levels with headings (<h1>, <h2>, <h3>). Change default font type and size with CSS
• Images <img src="image.jpg" width="500" height="600"> They say that a figure says more than 1000 words, but include max 10 Figures for each lab.
• Hyperlinks <a href=”url">This is a link</a>
  • Link to one or more documents (typically PDF).
  • Link to a second .html web site created by you Link to an external source/reference web site
  • Link to another paragraph within the same html file
  • Link to Email address
• CSS. Use a combination of different ways (make sure to use comments /* my comment */ or //comment):
  • Internal CSS within <head>, including “CSS by Id” and “CSS by Class”
  • Inline CSS directly on a specific HTML element <p style="text-align:center;">Centered paragraph.</p>
  • External Stylesheet (Change Font type, Font size, Colors, etc.) <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">
• A <title> tag should be used in all .html files
• A <header> with Name, and/or a menu (to other .html pages), or similar
• A <footer> with Contact Information or similar
• Some text/words should be in cursive and bold, etc. Both
• Lists: Unordered Lists <ul><li></li><ul> and Ordered Lists <ol><li></li></ol> should be used
• A HTML <table> should be included
• The HTML Code should include Comments <!-- Write your comments here -->
• One or more Videos using the <video> tag (created by you or others)
• Include <meta> data in <head> sections:
  • <meta name="keywords" content="IoT, Machine Learning, ..."
  • <meta name="author" content="John Doe">
• Include some form of basic JavaScript, e.g., you can show a message box to the user, e.g., asking for a Password, or something. If you don't want others to se the contents of your website, adding a Password is recommended.
• The web site should be validated (and preferably pass the test without errors) with http://validator.w3.org

 

Resources

Below you find some useful resources.

Video: Web Programming Overview:

Web Programming Overview

The Video is also available on YouTube

 

Video: HTML and CSS:

Create Web Pages using HTML and CSS

The Video is also available on YouTube

 

More Tutorials:

Introduction to Web Programming - with Step by Step Examples

 

Additional Programming Resources:

It is expected that you know basic HTML/CSS. If not, take a look at some of these resources below:

• HTML (w3schools.com) - HTML is the standard markup language needed for creating Web pages.
• CSS (w3schools.com) CSS is used to style the layout of your web page.
• HTML Essential Training - Lynda.com. The university has a subscription, so you can use it for free!
• Khan Academy - Learn basic HTML and other stuff
• Basic HTML/CSS knowledge Videos: HTML Basics, HTML Text, HTML Lists, HTML Images, HTML Links, HTML Internal Links, HTML Tables, HTML Comments, CSS Basic, CSS by Id, CSS by Class, CSS Fonts, CSS Font Styles, CSS Text Properties, CSS Inheritance, CSS Inline Styles, CSS External Stylesheet
• See how CSS can change your Web Site: csszengarden.com
• More Web/HTML: Webpage Design, HTML Validation (i.e., do you follow the latest HTML 5 standards?), What to do Next?

 

 

 

Questions and Answers (Q&A)

In this Forum everybody can ask Questions, answer Questions, give Tips and Tricks, Share Information, etc. Please use Full Name and Picture and Write in English.

Very often someone else is wondering about the same as you - or perhaps someone else has experienced the same thing and found a solution for the problem? Need help outside normal office hours? Perhaps a fellow student can help you if you ask your questions here?