Teaching and online learning activities in engineering courses using Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks

The Information and Communication Technologies play increasingly a fundamental role to support teaching and online learning in engineering courses. In particular, Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSAN) are simultaneously a matter of interest for several engineering courses and a way to enable remote access to laboratory experiments. The Remote and Virtual Laboratory of the Department of Informatics Engineering of the University of Coimbra (Portugal) is part of the flock.uc.pt web-based platform under development to allow users to perform remote and virtual experiments in several engineering domains. This paper aims to describe its potential use mainly in engineering courses, but also in lifelong learning programs. The main features of the remote experiments and the potential of the WSAN to interact with lab systems are described.