Title : 
Virtual Lab platform for distance learning courses in engineering technologies for the use of renewable energies
         
        
            Author : 
Bonilla, Antonio Molina ; Santos, Antonio Colmenar ; Gil, Manuel Castro ; Diez, David Borge ; Espierrez, Jesús Vazquez
         
        
            Author_Institution : 
Dept. de Ing. Electr., Electron. y Control, Univ. Nac. de Educ. a Distancia, Madrid, Spain
         
        
        
        
        
        
            Abstract : 
Harnessing energy from the renewable energy sources is coming to be more and more relevant in the coming years [1], due to this fact power energy companies and manufacturing companies producing technology facilities for the renewable energy harvesting are demanding engineers skilled in this field [2]. As a general answer to that fact, all the universities are adapting their engineering curricula to that demand creating new subjects in renewable energy (RE) technology; those new subjects needs new education tools and this motivate the investigation and creation of software simulation environment specific for those technologies with the goal of engineering education. In the present work it is shown a multi-platform software architecture specially designed for distance learning and with the target to be a complementary tool to the curricula contents of the new subjects in RE engineering with the aim to offer a virtual laboratory able to simulate the most updated energy harnessing systems. Flow diagrams, management, functionality and capabilities of this multi-platform software environment development is explained in the article.
         
        
            Keywords : 
digital simulation; distance learning; educational courses; educational institutions; energy harvesting; power engineering education; renewable energy sources; virtual reality; distance learning courses; engineering curricula; engineering technologies; manufacturing companies; multiplatform software environment; power energy companies; renewable energy harvesting; software simulation; universities; virtual lab platform; Educational institutions; Java; Laboratories; Mathematical model; Monitoring; Software; lab; platform; renewable; simulation; virtual;
         
        
        
        
            Conference_Titel : 
Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2012 IEEE
         
        
            Conference_Location : 
Marrakech
         
        
        
            Print_ISBN : 
978-1-4673-1457-2
         
        
            Electronic_ISBN : 
2165-9559
         
        
        
            DOI : 
10.1109/EDUCON.2012.6201082