Fostering Research Engagement in Engineering Students via an Industrial-Level Control Device

Currently, vehicles come equipped with a growing number of electronic devices that enable various driving assis-tance systems. From an academic perspective, it is imperative that engineering students develop the skills and knowledge necessary to handle standardized devices in the automotive industry. To promote interaction with this technology and disseminate theo-retical concepts, innovative ideas, and critical thinking, educative workshops playa crucial role in engaging undergraduate students in the research field. This article presents a case study of an active learning method (project-based learning) in engineering education at Tecnologico de Monterrey, which involves developing an automotive control project using an industrial-level controller, i.e., a Vehicle Control Unit (VCU). This activity helps students to learn signal processing tasks, control design problems, and analyze the capabilities of VCU with simpler environments like Arduino. Typically, students conduct these activities following a research methodology. For this assessment, two groups of engineering students have been defined. One group has previously undergone a control engineering course, while the other group has not. The study evaluated the results obtained from the statisti-cal analysis of the scores of the two groups with respect to their involvement in industrial equipment projects and their perceptions of the project complexity. The first group consisted of undergraduates who had not taken a control course, and the second group included those who have already taken it. Therefore, the first group showed a better understanding of the subject than the second group. However, both groups expressed a preference for conducting engineering projects with real vehicles instead of scaled -down models.