Undergraduate Laboratory for Machine Vision

通过机器视觉应用实现的过程自动化极大地提高了成本效益，从而提高了许多制造业的竞争优势。具有讽刺意味的是，大多数大学的本科机器视觉教育仍然更注重理论和零碎的算法，而对这些组件与工业自动化的整合重视不够。佛罗里达大西洋大学提议开发一个本科实验室，为多项机器视觉实验提供支持。该实验室将有六个工作站，每个工作站由一台带有图像采集卡的PC、一台CCD摄像机和一套照明装置组成。该工作站将是一个独立的系统，因为所有的实验都可以在它上面运行。六个工作站还将通过局域网连接起来，以便远程用户可以共享实验室资源。这对于全职或兼职的通勤学生来说将是非常方便的。将主要为3学分的高级机器视觉课程开发7个实验和1个项目。许多拟议的实验室实验将是以设计为导向的，因此是开放式的。在学习了基础知识后，学生将制定自己的计划，使用可用的实验设备和软件包完成任务。本课程将强调一个完整的系统方法，而不是具体的算法实现。通过这样做，我们希望它将极大地提高学生解决现实世界工程问题的能力。一旦实验室建立，我们将通过以下方式加强这一进程：(A)寻求其他教员参与实验室发展，(B)为工业参与者引入晚间/周末课程，为高中生提供暑期课程，以及(C)建立互联网主页，提供实验手册、视频演示和软件等课程材料。

Process automation through machine vision applications has dramatically improved cost effectiveness and hence the competitive edge of many manufacturing industries. Ironically, undergraduate machine vision education in most universities still stresses more on theory and piecewise algorithms with insufficient emphasis on the integration of these components to industrial automation. Florida Atlantic University proposes to develop an undergraduate laboratory that supports a number of machine vision experiments. The laboratory will have six workstations, each of which consists of a PC with a frame grabber, a CCD camera, and a lighting setup. The workstation will be a stand-alone system since all experiments can be run on it. The six workstations will also be linked by a local area network so that lab resources can be shared for remote users. This will be very convenient for commuter students who work full-time or part-time. A total of seven experiments and a project will be developed mainly for a 3-credit senior-level machine vision course. Many of the proposed lab experiments will be design-oriented and hence open-ended. After learning the basics, the students will devise their own schemes to accomplish their tasks using the available lab equipment and software packages. The course will emphasize an integrated system approach rather than specific algorithm implementation. By doing so, we hope that it will greatly enhance the students' ability to solve real-world engineering problems. Once the laboratory is established, we will reinforce the process by (a) seeking the participation of other faculty in lab development, (b) introducing evening/weekend classes for industrial participants and summer programs for high school students, and (c) setting up an internet home page to provide course materials such as lab manuals, video demonstrations and software.