Teaching Engineering Concepts Across Multiple Disciplines Using A Single Platform Based On Virtual Instrumentation

Multidisciplinary Labs are becoming increasingly important with convergence of technologies. Continuing budget cuts make it difficult to fund new infrastructure such as physical labs and alternatives that enable educators to reuse existing labs are needed. With the evolution of the desktop and graphical design technologies based on Virtual Instrumentation, it is now possible to implement multidisciplinary labs that span different facets of engineering from control and signal processing to embedded design, from chemistry and physics to electrical and computer engineering. In this paper, we will explain how Virtual Instrumentation helps to establish multidisciplinary labs. We will also examine a modular, cost-effective, laboratory platform, NI ELVIS (Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Suite) from National Instruments that has gained acceptance in academia as platform to teach concepts in sensors & transducers, circuits, electronics, microcontroller programming, control, signal processing and embedded design and test.