AUA’s College of Science and Engineering Selected to Lead Innovative Engineering Initiative

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In Collaboration with Universities in Georgia, Ukraine, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Romania

The College of Science and Engineering (CSE) at the American University of Armenia is participating in a 3-year Tempus project entitled “Industrial Cooperation and Creative Engineering Education Based on Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation.” The objective of the Project is to “Empower university-enterprises partnerships in Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine by modernizing engineering education based on remote engineering and virtual instrumentation.” Tempus programs are funded by the European Union (EU) and designed to promote cooperation among and support modernization of institutions of research and higher education in countries surrounding the EU.

The program consists of four European Union  universities from Germany,  Austria,  Spain and Romania — which will provide Armenian, Georgian, and Ukrainian universities with Remote Engineering Education and Virtual Instrumentation tools (in short, a Remote Lab) and help them in installing and running these Labs. Additionally, an Austrian training and certification company shares its expertise in preparing training modules. Designed both for industry and academia, these modules will be developed by AUA’s College of Science and Engineering faculty.

College of Science and Engineering Faculty Participated in Global Meetings

In December 2012, a kick-off meeting was held in Ilmenau, Germany.  During this meeting partner universities introduced themselves to each other and the work packages for which they will be responsible. The activities in the Project are organized in 7 work packages.  AUA will lead the 6^th one, called Dissemination and Sustainability. Its aim is to provide project-related information to student associations, managers from industry and universities, and other target groups enabling them to use the project outcomes, as well as to build efficient cooperation between industry and higher educational institutions. AUA was represented by the Chair of the Industrial Engineering and Systems Management program Professor Sargis Zeytunyan.

Professor Zeytunyan, presenting to the group. (Ilmenau, Germany, December 2012)	Collaboration group from the kick-off meeting

The second meeting took place in Brasov, Romania in May 2013.. The aim of the meeting was to introduce to the Project partners the “Remote Lab” technologies and some of their applications in the educational process. Remote Labs can enrich engineering education by greatly expanding the range of experiments that students are exposed to in the course of their education. One of these Labs, called REAL, provided by the Ilmenau University of Technology, will soon be installed in the College of Science and Engineering of AUA. In this meeting AUA was represented by the Chair of the Computer and Information Science program Professor Suren Khachatryan and visiting lecturer Albert Minasyan.

Remote lab collaboration team photo	AUA’s Professors Khachtrayan (L) and Minasyan (R) discussing the system with a colleague