Laboratories

Research and Teaching in the School of Systems Engineering is supported by a number of state-of-the-art laboratories. These include PC labs, for computing and IT; specialised computers and other equipment for electronic engineering and cybernetics, including a laboratory funded by Microchip, makers of the PIC microcontrollers; and research facilities for Virtual Reality, Computer Vision, Robotics, Haptics, Signal Processing, Terahertz Technology and Multilayer Infra-red filters.

These labs are used to re-enforce topics taught in lectures through set practical work or by self-study and exploration, as well as providing facilities for research projects undertaken by undergraduates, postgraduates or other researchers.

Each machine is connected to the School network and on to the Internet, using Reading's 1Gb link. Most PC labs (right) are dual-boot, allowing use of both the Windows and Linux operating systems. The PCs host a range of software packages, many 'industry standard' such as Rational ROSE, Maya, Oracle, Visual Studio as well as office and Internet applications. 'virtual PC' software is provided, allowing students can set up their own operating system and software environments within the host PC. This is useful for advanced project work in the latter years of the courses.

Specialised computer labs are provided which provide access to a range of architectures and operating systems, including 64bit Opteron workstations and Sun Microsystems SPARC servers. There is also the ability to interface teaching systems to the School's impressive research resources, such as the Virtual Reality CAVE. This allows work to be visualised in an immersive 3D environment. The School maintains a parallel workstation cluster as part of a campus-wide GRID of computers. This allows programs to be run intensively over multiple computers for large 'grand-challenge' problems that are prevalent in computing. This resource is available early in the undergraduate programme.

Support for the Cybernetics and Electronic Engineering degrees occurs both in set PC labs and also in conjunction with electronic systems directly. Once programming skills are developed, students can write, compile and download programs to PIC microcontrollers in order to control a range of cybernetic and embedded devices. Specifically for PIC controllers, the School has the Microchip lab, opened in September 2007, which now boasts a full suite of the latest Microchip Technology hardware, software and development tools for use in practicals and project work.

Control engineering experiments are carried out in real time, using real physical control systems, via a special suite of control workstations. Some experiments may use bespoke systems built in the School's mechanical workshop. Students are trained in the use of the workshop and may use it as part of their project work. The Dalek for instance was built in the workshop.

The School is ever mindful of the fast pace of technological change that is a feature of modern science, engineering and ICT in particular. It therefore acts to pioneer computing education by providing access to the School's many resources remotely over the Internet. This works particularly well in combination with the readingConnect system, which offers students a network connection in every halls bedroom at the University. The innovative access to resources enables a new working relationship between the student and staff. Even though the School has many labs open late, this level of access allows flexible working and prolonged exposure to educational computing systems. The School also participates in vendor schemes which provide free or reduced cost to computer software and hardware.

The School houses various research laboratories. We have the fastest supercomputer in a UK University and a Virtual Reality system called a CAVE. In the Haptics Research laboratory, Thril, interfaces to computer systems which use touch are developed – which can be of use in virtual environments. We also have two robotics laboratories – the Active Robotics Laboratory for space-robotics and educational robotics; and MADLAB the mobile autonomous devices laboratory where the Cybernetic mobile robots were developed. Research into instrumentation and signal processing takes place in the Signal Processing, Terahartz and Infra-red Multi-layer Filters laboratories. More information on these facilities can be found on our research group pages.

'The course teaches you a lot of techniques to adapt to working in the real world. There are many computer facilities available for long hours. There are plenty of choices for the course so you can choose what field you want to go into and there are good career prospects at the end of the course.'