Educative impact of a remote laboratory to experience industrial robotics

Undergraduate students must develop skills, knowledge, and values to face the challenges of their imminent step into professional life. Mechatronics engineering is a multidisciplinary field mainly focused on providing solutions and integrating technologies for automated production systems in areas such as automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, petrochemical, agricultural, and pharmaceutical sectors. Industrial robots are critical to reaching the cost, productivity, and quality goals in any of these areas. Therefore, undergraduate mechatronics engineers must learn how to integrate robots to provide solutions for the different industrial sectors. However, not all students can work directly with industrial robots due to their high cost and complex maintenance. Typically, industrial robot simulators have been a common approach for schools with no access to industrial labs. The work presented in this paper proposes the implementation of an industrial robotics laboratory that may be accessed remotely to share the available industrial-like infrastructure with students of other sites. The educative impact on students with this experience is evaluated according to their interest in robotics and academic performance.