A framework for teaching Autonomous Mobile Robotics is presented. The activity is part of the Bachelor’s program in Artificial Intelligence at the Federal University of Goiás, Brazil. The program runs over four years, and the framework was built as a design-implement experience for a course module in autonomous mobile robotics in the fourth year. The first years of the program contain mandatory course modules in entrepreneurship, mathematics, and computer science, and the course module in robotics is the second one where students are introduced to a design-implement experience based on the CDIO framework. The course module was designed in collaboration with engineers from Synkar Autonomous in Brazil to validate the design process. The course framework consisted of software and hardware resources, such as container virtualization to run repeatable test cases, ROS2 for developing robotic software and applications, project management using kanban to suit the lifecycle of robotic prototyping (i.e., hardware-based software development), and the “Albot” customized robot designed for the practical experiences. As a result, we created a first design-implement experience in robotics, that was able to match basic professional skills demanded by industry, such as agile development, reproducibility, and software modularization. The framework also served to train the students with the best practices and modern methodologies used by leading companies in robotics. Finally, some reflections and lessons learned were pointed out to further improve the course module in future.

A system, named Reflex, for handling reflection documents is presented. Writing a reflection document is a mandatory last step when carrying out Master’s or Bachelor’s theses within all education programs at the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Linköping University. In the reflection document the students are expected to reflect on both the thesis work and the outcome of the entire education program. The reflection is structured according to the four sections of the CDIO Syllabus plus additional aspects around the process of the thesis work and the program as a whole. Reflection documents have been used for more than ten years, but via the introduction of Reflex in 2023 the process is entirely electronic and all texts from the reflections are stored in a searchable database. This enables efficient and systematic analyses of the texts, which can be used for evaluations of entire programs as well as selected aspects. Two examples of such analyses are presented in the paper. In addition, the thesis work process is presented, together with a description of how the system Reflex works. 

The automatic control subject has several connections to sustainability and can play an important role in the strive towards a more sustainable society. An example of how sustainability is included in a basic course in automatic control is presented, where the links between the degree requirements, sustainability and the subject are illustrated using The Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SGDs). The key idea is to present real world application examples where automatic control is a vital component and there are clear connections to the SDGs. The examples are inspired and illustrated using videos and images taken from the internet. Several times during the course a part of the lecture time is used to show a video, describe how the control subject comes in, and how the use of feedback control via the application can contribute to the fulfillment of the SDG

A design-implement experience in computer vision, which is part of the Bachelor’s program in Artificial Intelligence at the Federal University of Goiás, Brazil, is presented. The program runs over four years, and the design-implement experience is part of a course module in computer vision in the third year. The first years of the program contains mandatory course modules in mathematics, computer science and entrepreneurship, and the module in computer vision is the first module where students were introduced to work in projects in the CDIO form. As a result, some of the students which had previous knowledge about project management and development performed well and achieved solid results. Some other students which underestimated the project scope had a less solid performance and achieved weaker results. However, the final overall feedback from the students was positive and lessons learned were appointed for future improvements.

The control system of industrial robots is often model-based, and the quality of the model of high importance. Therefore, a fast and easy-to-use process for finding the model parameters from a combination of prior knowledge and measurement data is required. It has been shown that the experiment design can be improved in terms of short experiment times and an accurate parameter estimate if the robot configurations for the identification experiments are selected carefully. Estimates of the information matrix can be generated based on simulations for a number of candidate configurations, and an optimization problem can be solved for finding the optimal configurations. This work shows that the proposed method for improved experiment design works with a real manipulator, i.e. it is demonstrated that the experiment time is reduced significantly and the accuracy of the parameter estimate can be maintained or reduced if experiments are conducted only in the optimal manipulator configurations. It is also shown that the model improvement is relevant for realizing accurate control. Finally, the experimental data reveals that, in order to further improve the model accuracy, a more advanced model structure is needed for taking into account the commonly present nonlinear transmission stiffness of the robotic joints.

A case study of the use of reflections within the Applied physics and electrical engineering program at Linköping University is presented. Reflections have been used for several years and they are done at four stages in the program, in terms of reflections at the end of the Introductory course in year one, design-implement experiences in year three and five, and a reflection document that is the last component of the Master’s thesis. In the first three stages a project model is used to support the planning and execution of the project, and in the project model the project work ends with a reflection. In the reflection document connected to the Master’s thesis the student reflects upon both the thesis work itself and the entire education program, according to the sections and subsections of the CDIO Syllabus. The paper describes how the reflections are integrated in the program. Experiences from student perspective are collected in a small-scale study via interviews with students from year one and year five. 

Interaction with the surrounding society and external stakeholders is an important component when developing and managing high quality and relevant education programs. This paper presents some of the outcomes of the project MERUT which was carried out during 2018 – 2020 with support from the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova. The key outcome is a toolbox offering a structured way to describe and handle methods and tools for stakeholder interaction. The methods of interaction are organized in three categories, denoted A, B, and C, where category A includes methods for external stakeholders to influence the management and development of the education program. Category B consists of means for external stakeholders to have an active role in course modules, and category C contains methods and tools to evaluate the quality and relevance of the education from, for example, alumni or employer perspective. Examples from the different categories are presented, including the CDIO Syllabus Survey, alumni surveys, and reflection documents. 

For accurate control of industrial robots, a fast and easy-to-use method to estimate the model parameters based on experimental data is desired. This publication is about optimal experiment design in terms of short experiment times and an accurate parameter estimate. An optimization problem that is based on information matrices is solved for finding the optimal robot configurations for the identification experiment. A simulation study shows that the experiment time can be reduced significantly and the accuracy of the parameter estimate can be increased if experiments are conducted only in the optimal manipulator configurations. Furthermore, it is shown that a realistic estimate of the uncertainty in the frequency response function is crucial for successful experiment design.

Challenge-based learning (CBL) is a learning approach that has received increased attention during  the last years. In some of the publications about CBL the connections to the CDIO (conceive-design-implement-operate) framework is discussed, and the purpose of this paper is to discuss these connections further. CBL has connections to both Problem-based learning (PBL) and Project-based learning (PjBL), but while these are learning approaches, the CDIO framework has a program perspective, including aspects of learning approaches, and hence a wider scope. The connections and differences between CBL and CDIO are discussed based on the components of the CDIO Standards.  

The CDIO Initiative is going through a process of reconsidering and updating the CDIO approach for engineering education development. Previous work resulted in substantial updates of the twelve CDIO standards and the introduction of “optional” CDIO standards. This paper reports on a similar review and update of the CDIO Syllabus to version 3.0. It has been developed by a working group consisting of four sub-groups and iterated and refined guided by feedback from the whole CDIO community. There are mainly three external drivers that motivate the changes: sustainability, digitalization, and acceleration. There is also an internal driver in the form of lessons learned within the CDIO community, from using the Syllabus in curriculum and course development. Approximately 70 updates are proposed, amongst them three additions on the X.X level, namely 1.4 Knowledge of Social Sciences and Humanities, 3.1 Teamwork and Collaboration, and 5.3 Research.