Mr. Fratu is the author of six books, more than 120 articles, and more than 20 patents of inventions. His current research interests include control engineering, discrete event systems, automated manufacturing, robotics, virtual prototyping and simulation.Mr. Fratu was a recipient of the Romanian Academy Award for Elite Inventor in 1996.
This paper deals with the programming through imitation. In this paper the author give a brief ov... more This paper deals with the programming through imitation. In this paper the author give a brief overview of a general programming concept, describing the primary tasks which a robot control system needs to implement. Based on original idea the author proposes a new strategy to robot programming, using virtual robot prototypes. In this paper one use the virtual robot prototypes and the motion capture systems to obtain the reference motion data, which typically consist of a set of trajectories in the Cartesian space. To generate the desired motion sequence for the real robot, one captures the motions from a virtual robot model and maps these to the joint settings of the physical robot.
This paper presents a simple methodology for obtaining the entire set of continuous controllers t... more This paper presents a simple methodology for obtaining the entire set of continuous controllers that cause a nonlinear dynamical system to exactly track a given trajectory. The trajectory is provided as a set of algebraic differential equations that may or may not be explicitly dependent on time. The method provided is inspired by results from analytical dynamics and the close connection between nonlinear control and analytical dynamics is explored. The results provided in this paper here yield new and explicit methods for the control of highly nonlinear systems. The paper is based on previous work of the authors.
The paper proposes three experiments of examples based on learning. The students concerned are st... more The paper proposes three experiments of examples based on learning. The students concerned are students attending in the bachelor of technology courses in the electrical engineering domain including the computer science domain. The teachers-researchers from France, Romania and Poland have been collaborating for many years mainly in Erasmus background. The first experiment is concerned with a method called the DARE method by the authors. The method builds a connection in real time with maths and applied sciences by the use of a computer algebraic system during a three hours session of intensive practical work. The second case focuses on the virtual prototyping learning. The method spread in 3 months for students in an Erasmus placement. The last example discusses the reverse learning technique. These approach turned out to be necessary because of the short working time that is a one week international challenge. The DARE method: the method has been built by teachers/researchers in an Institute of technology involved in a way to motivate their students. The use of computers in the maths course motivates students to practice maths in connection with other scientific domains such as the electrical engineering domain. The virtual prototyping method: The domain of investigation is the virtual prototyping. The virtual product development replaces traditional material object tests with digitized form product by building product digital model. The virtual prototype technology carries out any product optimization. Virtual prototype technology is a kind of engineering method which can shorten new product development cycles by replacing a physical prototype by a virtual digital model. The subject detailed here deals with a virtual prototyping using Delphi programming environment. The example based teaching method is thus applied. There are several potential advantages of example based learning programs, including the ability for people to learn from their home and study without the assistance of an instructor. As the use of computers in life is increasing, all teaching methods and strategies should be renewed to match with the advancement of technology. It means that videos, texts, lessons, homeworks in electronics format should be easily downloaded by any new learner. Flipped classroom for an international challenge: The last experiment deals with a recent collaboration with a Polish University concerning French students in part time course and full course Polish students. The educational system in France offers to students to become workers while taking lessons at university. They are called apprentices. Roughly speaking they share their time one month at the university and one month inside their company. At the university, the students must participate to a one week international seminar as mentioned in their syllabus. For a couple of years, this week has been spent at the Warsaw University of Technology. Conversely, the Polish students and their teachers have been invited to participate one week to an educational challenge with students from the Valenciennes Institute of Technology. Due to the restricted time devoted learning and to the negative and positive comments on the feedback, an intensive working week has been built for 2 years in both countries. Base on the internet connection, the teaching and practicing week can be considered as a kind of a flipped classroom. The paper describes the French system for apprentices and two examples of the international challenge.
Since a couple of decades, authors are running towards the vanishing student motivations. They ha... more Since a couple of decades, authors are running towards the vanishing student motivations. They have applied a large amount of teaching tools or methods as the slide rule, overhead projector, programmable calculator, software, internet, moodle and supervised projects. Project based learning is one of them. Initially used in an Erasmus background, that is placement in a foreign partner university for three months, the project based learning technique is now applied in projects supervised by local teachers. The main goal is to increase the autonomy of students. The paper deals with one project in connection with robotics and using the modern MOOC technique. The term MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. A free access to the course is done by the internet. At the Valenciennes Institute of Technology, some supervised projects are focusing on electronics, process control, physics, maths or electrotechnics applied to robotics. The Lego Mindstorms NXT or an homemade solar tracker rove...
This paper presents a simple methodology for obtaining the entire set of continuous controllers t... more This paper presents a simple methodology for obtaining the entire set of continuous controllers that cause a nonlinear dynamical system to exactly track a given trajectory. The trajectory is provided as a set of algebraic differential equations that may or may not be explicitly dependent on time. The method provided is inspired by results from analytical dynamics and the close connection between nonlinear control and analytical dynamics is explored. The results provided in this paper here yield new and explicit methods for the control of highly nonlinear systems. The paper is based on previous work of the authors.
This paper is focused on the various virtual architectures of the intelligent buildings. One of t... more This paper is focused on the various virtual architectures of the intelligent buildings. One of the actual challenges is to educate owners on the benefits of an intelligent building design. This makes the education of both owners and architects about the benefits of intelligent design solutions as virtual prototyping. In current quest for modernization designers need that the building owner receives the best product possible. Building designers face exciting new challenges in incorporating new and innovative technologies in designing an efficient integrated intelligent building in areas of the building structure and its mechanical and electrical systems. The innovative design technologies would need to ensure that the end users achieve the utilization of its abilities in optimization of the projects.
This paper is focused on the various virtual architectures of the intelligent buildings. Building... more This paper is focused on the various virtual architectures of the intelligent buildings. Building designers face exciting new challenges in incorporating new and innovative technologies in designing an efficient integrated intelligent building in areas of the building structure and its mechanical and electrical systems. The innovative design technologies would need to ensure that the end users achieve the utilization of its abilities in optimization of the projects. Creating an intelligent building does require an investment in advanced technology, processes and solutions. An ingenuous investment is required to realize a significant return later on. It is unrealistic to expect to make a project intelligent unless there is early acquisition in on investment. Over, these decisions need to happen prior to the start of design work. One of the challenges is to educate owners on the benefits of an intelligent building design. This makes the education of both owners and architects about th...
This paper describes the virtual assembly automation systems, as decision support systems, for th... more This paper describes the virtual assembly automation systems, as decision support systems, for the better knowledge of assembly operation. The study of this procedure is described as well as the necessity for assembly systems design. The work draws on research into product and manufacturing knowledge models, and uses a case study based on a simplified virtual assembly line realized in Delphi programming environment. The paper describes the adopted solutions used to perform those tasks, giving special attention to the software designed to supervise the system. To support robot work simulation, a simulator program is developed.
This paper presents the integration between the components hardware and the driven functions soft... more This paper presents the integration between the components hardware and the driven functions software, resulting in integrated systems called intelligent mechatronic systems. Their development involves finding an optimal balance between the basic mechanical structure, sensor and actuator implementation, automatics information processing and control. A major importance is the simultaneous design of mechanics and electronics, hardware and software and embedded control functions resulting in an integrated system.
The paper deals with a method used many years for example based learning for the virtual prototyp... more The paper deals with a method used many years for example based learning for the virtual prototyping. The authors collaborate since ten years in Erasmus background. It means four french students a year in the bachelor of technology course got a three months placement in Romania supervised by the authors. They are applying this learning method described here. The investigation domain is the virtual prototyping. The virtual product development replaces traditional material object test with digitized form product by building product’s digital model. It offers to analyze product’s static and dynamic characteristics on the circumstance of digital state, and rebuild and improve the original design. The virtual prototype technology carries out any product optimization. Virtual prototype technology is a kind of engineering method which can shorten new product development cycles by replacing cost physical prototype with virtual digital model. The subject detailed here deals with a virtual pr...
In this paper, we propose the idea of integration of virtual robots prototypes with physical robo... more In this paper, we propose the idea of integration of virtual robots prototypes with physical robots, based on wireless communications. The goal of this paper is to discuss how the virtual prototyping can be effectively employed for design challenges dealing with non-material concepts, in form of virtual prototypes, that permits to examine on a computer monitor, the behavior of the physical robots using her virtual prototype to predictive programming idea. Virtual prototypes as non-material systems can communicate wirelessly with physical robots by transferring the virtual path of virtual robot prototypes in domains of the work space of the physical robots. In this paper we discuss the requirements and opportunities of such an approach.
2014 International Conference on Optimization of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (OPTIM), 2014
ABSTRACT In this paper, based on original idea, the authors propose a new strategy to robot progr... more ABSTRACT In this paper, based on original idea, the authors propose a new strategy to robot programming using imitation paradigm. To program the desired motion sequence for the physical robot, one captures the motion reference paths from her virtual robot model and maps these to the joint settings of the physical robot. Motion imitation requires transfer of a dynamical signature of a movement of the virtual robot to the physical robot, i.e. the robots should be able to encode and reproduce a particular path as one with a specific velocity and/or an acceleration profile. Furthermore, the virtual robot must cover all possible contexts in which the physical robot will need to generate similar motions in unseen context.
This paper presents an analysis of the collision avoidance of the cooperative robots using the pr... more This paper presents an analysis of the collision avoidance of the cooperative robots using the programming through imitation. Each physical robot acts fully independently, communicating with corresponding virtual prototype and imitating her behavior. Each physical robot reproduces the motion of her virtual prototype. The estimation of the collision-free actions of the virtual cooperative robots and the transfer of the virtual joint trajectories to the physical robots who imitate there virtual prototypes, are the original ideas. We tested the present strategy on several simulation scenarios, involving two virtual robots and estimating collision-free actions, during of the cooperative tasks.
2010 3rd International Symposium on Electrical and Electronics Engineering (ISEEE), 2010
Abstract The present paper relates to the operation of robotic systems to avoid obstacles while ... more Abstract The present paper relates to the operation of robotic systems to avoid obstacles while positioning end-effectors. A new strategy to on-line collision-avoidance of the redundant robots with obstacles is presented. The strategy allows the use of redundant degrees of freedom ...
The present paper generally relates to robots, more specifically to robots acting autonomously an... more The present paper generally relates to robots, more specifically to robots acting autonomously and requiring a safety method to avoid collisions with other objects as well as collision between one moveable segments of the robot. The authors have tested an avoid collisions method on complex simulation scenarios involving a virtual robot and have estimated collision-free actions. The virtual robot is able to react to avoid the obstacles while executing the robotic tasks. This was shown experimentally with a virtual system. This kind of robot's behaviour simulation will be necessary in real applications, where interactions between robot and her environment are vital.
This paper deals with the programming through imitation. In this paper the author give a brief ov... more This paper deals with the programming through imitation. In this paper the author give a brief overview of a general programming concept, describing the primary tasks which a robot control system needs to implement. Based on original idea the author proposes a new strategy to robot programming, using virtual robot prototypes. In this paper one use the virtual robot prototypes and the motion capture systems to obtain the reference motion data, which typically consist of a set of trajectories in the Cartesian space. To generate the desired motion sequence for the real robot, one captures the motions from a virtual robot model and maps these to the joint settings of the physical robot.
This paper presents a simple methodology for obtaining the entire set of continuous controllers t... more This paper presents a simple methodology for obtaining the entire set of continuous controllers that cause a nonlinear dynamical system to exactly track a given trajectory. The trajectory is provided as a set of algebraic differential equations that may or may not be explicitly dependent on time. The method provided is inspired by results from analytical dynamics and the close connection between nonlinear control and analytical dynamics is explored. The results provided in this paper here yield new and explicit methods for the control of highly nonlinear systems. The paper is based on previous work of the authors.
The paper proposes three experiments of examples based on learning. The students concerned are st... more The paper proposes three experiments of examples based on learning. The students concerned are students attending in the bachelor of technology courses in the electrical engineering domain including the computer science domain. The teachers-researchers from France, Romania and Poland have been collaborating for many years mainly in Erasmus background. The first experiment is concerned with a method called the DARE method by the authors. The method builds a connection in real time with maths and applied sciences by the use of a computer algebraic system during a three hours session of intensive practical work. The second case focuses on the virtual prototyping learning. The method spread in 3 months for students in an Erasmus placement. The last example discusses the reverse learning technique. These approach turned out to be necessary because of the short working time that is a one week international challenge. The DARE method: the method has been built by teachers/researchers in an Institute of technology involved in a way to motivate their students. The use of computers in the maths course motivates students to practice maths in connection with other scientific domains such as the electrical engineering domain. The virtual prototyping method: The domain of investigation is the virtual prototyping. The virtual product development replaces traditional material object tests with digitized form product by building product digital model. The virtual prototype technology carries out any product optimization. Virtual prototype technology is a kind of engineering method which can shorten new product development cycles by replacing a physical prototype by a virtual digital model. The subject detailed here deals with a virtual prototyping using Delphi programming environment. The example based teaching method is thus applied. There are several potential advantages of example based learning programs, including the ability for people to learn from their home and study without the assistance of an instructor. As the use of computers in life is increasing, all teaching methods and strategies should be renewed to match with the advancement of technology. It means that videos, texts, lessons, homeworks in electronics format should be easily downloaded by any new learner. Flipped classroom for an international challenge: The last experiment deals with a recent collaboration with a Polish University concerning French students in part time course and full course Polish students. The educational system in France offers to students to become workers while taking lessons at university. They are called apprentices. Roughly speaking they share their time one month at the university and one month inside their company. At the university, the students must participate to a one week international seminar as mentioned in their syllabus. For a couple of years, this week has been spent at the Warsaw University of Technology. Conversely, the Polish students and their teachers have been invited to participate one week to an educational challenge with students from the Valenciennes Institute of Technology. Due to the restricted time devoted learning and to the negative and positive comments on the feedback, an intensive working week has been built for 2 years in both countries. Base on the internet connection, the teaching and practicing week can be considered as a kind of a flipped classroom. The paper describes the French system for apprentices and two examples of the international challenge.
Since a couple of decades, authors are running towards the vanishing student motivations. They ha... more Since a couple of decades, authors are running towards the vanishing student motivations. They have applied a large amount of teaching tools or methods as the slide rule, overhead projector, programmable calculator, software, internet, moodle and supervised projects. Project based learning is one of them. Initially used in an Erasmus background, that is placement in a foreign partner university for three months, the project based learning technique is now applied in projects supervised by local teachers. The main goal is to increase the autonomy of students. The paper deals with one project in connection with robotics and using the modern MOOC technique. The term MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. A free access to the course is done by the internet. At the Valenciennes Institute of Technology, some supervised projects are focusing on electronics, process control, physics, maths or electrotechnics applied to robotics. The Lego Mindstorms NXT or an homemade solar tracker rove...
This paper presents a simple methodology for obtaining the entire set of continuous controllers t... more This paper presents a simple methodology for obtaining the entire set of continuous controllers that cause a nonlinear dynamical system to exactly track a given trajectory. The trajectory is provided as a set of algebraic differential equations that may or may not be explicitly dependent on time. The method provided is inspired by results from analytical dynamics and the close connection between nonlinear control and analytical dynamics is explored. The results provided in this paper here yield new and explicit methods for the control of highly nonlinear systems. The paper is based on previous work of the authors.
This paper is focused on the various virtual architectures of the intelligent buildings. One of t... more This paper is focused on the various virtual architectures of the intelligent buildings. One of the actual challenges is to educate owners on the benefits of an intelligent building design. This makes the education of both owners and architects about the benefits of intelligent design solutions as virtual prototyping. In current quest for modernization designers need that the building owner receives the best product possible. Building designers face exciting new challenges in incorporating new and innovative technologies in designing an efficient integrated intelligent building in areas of the building structure and its mechanical and electrical systems. The innovative design technologies would need to ensure that the end users achieve the utilization of its abilities in optimization of the projects.
This paper is focused on the various virtual architectures of the intelligent buildings. Building... more This paper is focused on the various virtual architectures of the intelligent buildings. Building designers face exciting new challenges in incorporating new and innovative technologies in designing an efficient integrated intelligent building in areas of the building structure and its mechanical and electrical systems. The innovative design technologies would need to ensure that the end users achieve the utilization of its abilities in optimization of the projects. Creating an intelligent building does require an investment in advanced technology, processes and solutions. An ingenuous investment is required to realize a significant return later on. It is unrealistic to expect to make a project intelligent unless there is early acquisition in on investment. Over, these decisions need to happen prior to the start of design work. One of the challenges is to educate owners on the benefits of an intelligent building design. This makes the education of both owners and architects about th...
This paper describes the virtual assembly automation systems, as decision support systems, for th... more This paper describes the virtual assembly automation systems, as decision support systems, for the better knowledge of assembly operation. The study of this procedure is described as well as the necessity for assembly systems design. The work draws on research into product and manufacturing knowledge models, and uses a case study based on a simplified virtual assembly line realized in Delphi programming environment. The paper describes the adopted solutions used to perform those tasks, giving special attention to the software designed to supervise the system. To support robot work simulation, a simulator program is developed.
This paper presents the integration between the components hardware and the driven functions soft... more This paper presents the integration between the components hardware and the driven functions software, resulting in integrated systems called intelligent mechatronic systems. Their development involves finding an optimal balance between the basic mechanical structure, sensor and actuator implementation, automatics information processing and control. A major importance is the simultaneous design of mechanics and electronics, hardware and software and embedded control functions resulting in an integrated system.
The paper deals with a method used many years for example based learning for the virtual prototyp... more The paper deals with a method used many years for example based learning for the virtual prototyping. The authors collaborate since ten years in Erasmus background. It means four french students a year in the bachelor of technology course got a three months placement in Romania supervised by the authors. They are applying this learning method described here. The investigation domain is the virtual prototyping. The virtual product development replaces traditional material object test with digitized form product by building product’s digital model. It offers to analyze product’s static and dynamic characteristics on the circumstance of digital state, and rebuild and improve the original design. The virtual prototype technology carries out any product optimization. Virtual prototype technology is a kind of engineering method which can shorten new product development cycles by replacing cost physical prototype with virtual digital model. The subject detailed here deals with a virtual pr...
In this paper, we propose the idea of integration of virtual robots prototypes with physical robo... more In this paper, we propose the idea of integration of virtual robots prototypes with physical robots, based on wireless communications. The goal of this paper is to discuss how the virtual prototyping can be effectively employed for design challenges dealing with non-material concepts, in form of virtual prototypes, that permits to examine on a computer monitor, the behavior of the physical robots using her virtual prototype to predictive programming idea. Virtual prototypes as non-material systems can communicate wirelessly with physical robots by transferring the virtual path of virtual robot prototypes in domains of the work space of the physical robots. In this paper we discuss the requirements and opportunities of such an approach.
2014 International Conference on Optimization of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (OPTIM), 2014
ABSTRACT In this paper, based on original idea, the authors propose a new strategy to robot progr... more ABSTRACT In this paper, based on original idea, the authors propose a new strategy to robot programming using imitation paradigm. To program the desired motion sequence for the physical robot, one captures the motion reference paths from her virtual robot model and maps these to the joint settings of the physical robot. Motion imitation requires transfer of a dynamical signature of a movement of the virtual robot to the physical robot, i.e. the robots should be able to encode and reproduce a particular path as one with a specific velocity and/or an acceleration profile. Furthermore, the virtual robot must cover all possible contexts in which the physical robot will need to generate similar motions in unseen context.
This paper presents an analysis of the collision avoidance of the cooperative robots using the pr... more This paper presents an analysis of the collision avoidance of the cooperative robots using the programming through imitation. Each physical robot acts fully independently, communicating with corresponding virtual prototype and imitating her behavior. Each physical robot reproduces the motion of her virtual prototype. The estimation of the collision-free actions of the virtual cooperative robots and the transfer of the virtual joint trajectories to the physical robots who imitate there virtual prototypes, are the original ideas. We tested the present strategy on several simulation scenarios, involving two virtual robots and estimating collision-free actions, during of the cooperative tasks.
2010 3rd International Symposium on Electrical and Electronics Engineering (ISEEE), 2010
Abstract The present paper relates to the operation of robotic systems to avoid obstacles while ... more Abstract The present paper relates to the operation of robotic systems to avoid obstacles while positioning end-effectors. A new strategy to on-line collision-avoidance of the redundant robots with obstacles is presented. The strategy allows the use of redundant degrees of freedom ...
The present paper generally relates to robots, more specifically to robots acting autonomously an... more The present paper generally relates to robots, more specifically to robots acting autonomously and requiring a safety method to avoid collisions with other objects as well as collision between one moveable segments of the robot. The authors have tested an avoid collisions method on complex simulation scenarios involving a virtual robot and have estimated collision-free actions. The virtual robot is able to react to avoid the obstacles while executing the robotic tasks. This was shown experimentally with a virtual system. This kind of robot's behaviour simulation will be necessary in real applications, where interactions between robot and her environment are vital.
In this paper, the development of virtual prototypes models and their testing for active learning... more In this paper, the development of virtual prototypes models and their testing for active learning support is described. The personalized virtual applications selected by a tutor are used directly for performing active learning at the university's separated workplace. When using the virtual prototypes the main strategy of the informatics support is based on the developing informatics tools which are adapted for a pedagogical-engineering content. On-line learning outcomes materials, as virtual prototypes, were created and tested on the desktop environment. Some of them were also investigated as the " active elements " for active learning, especially for writing stage rapports including practical projects. The practice showed that the testing of issues such as the practical stage work can result in an active learning process. Virtual prototyping technique, as method for active learning informatics support, requires the further refinement and also the enhancement of students' informatics skills, as well.
Since a couple of decades, authors are running towards the vanishing student motivations. They ha... more Since a couple of decades, authors are running towards the vanishing student motivations. They have applied a large amount of teaching tools or methods as the slide rule, overhead projector, programmable calculator, software, internet, moodle and supervised projects. Project based learning is one of them. Initially used in an Erasmus background, that is placement in a foreign partner university for three months, the project based learning technique is now applied in projects supervised by local teachers. The main goal is to increase the autonomy of students. The paper deals with one project in connection with robotics and using the modern MOOC technique. The term MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. A free access to the course is done by the internet. At the Valenciennes Institute of Technology, some supervised projects are focusing on electronics, process control, physics, maths or electrotechnics applied to robotics. The Lego Mindstorms NXT or an homemade solar tracker rover or the French NAO humanoid make up the working platforms. Every use of any platform should gather and apply the knowledge of the previous domains. The students have to balance their mind from theory to application. Mainly, they should identify the required knowledge, and thus learn it, understand it and apply it by their own. As working alone seems a challenge, the difficulty can be fixed by the reverse learning technique. In particular the Massive Online Open Course, MOOC in short offers a new way to make students more autonomous. One example of a recent MOOC experiment given here has been done in the robotics framework. It proposes first to work in a theoretical domain laying on hard sciences then to apply the new concepts using a Matlab software or building and programming a Lego object by the way an intelligent arm. The MOOC concerns here over ten thousand worldwide participants. In the Institute of Technology, two groups have been formed for the MOOC. A local one is composed of six students from first year course in Electrical Engineering domain. Four Finnish students in second grade in Information Technology course form the second group. Their three months stay in France has been possible thanks to the Erasmus+ students exchange. In France, the students have been working and supervising weekly by teachers in Maths, Mechanics, Control and English language all the MOOC long. In Finland students worked by their own. The positive behaviour of students working in total autonomy is significant for the first module. The second module is requiring closer help by local supervisors. A final survey given to the students after the last session confirms the teachers feeling. This experiment should be renewed next academic year.
The paper proposes three experiments of examples based on learning. The students concerned are st... more The paper proposes three experiments of examples based on learning. The students concerned are students attending in the bachelor of technology courses in the electrical engineering domain including the computer science domain. The teachers-researchers from France, Romania and Poland have been collaborating for many years mainly in Erasmus background. The first experiment is concerned with a method called the DARE method by the authors. The method builds a connection in real time with maths and applied sciences by the use of a computer algebraic system during a three hours session of intensive practical work. The second case focuses on the virtual prototyping learning. The method spread in 3 months for students in an Erasmus placement. The last example discusses the reverse learning technique. These approach turned out to be necessary because of the short working time that is a one week international challenge. The DARE method: the method has been built by teachers/researchers in an Institute of technology involved in a way to motivate their students. The use of computers in the maths course motivates students to practice maths in connection with other scientific domains such as the electrical engineering domain. The virtual prototyping method: The domain of investigation is the virtual prototyping. The virtual product development replaces traditional material object tests with digitized form product by building product digital model. The virtual prototype technology carries out any product optimization. Virtual prototype technology is a kind of engineering method which can shorten new product development cycles by replacing a physical prototype by a virtual digital model. The subject detailed here deals with a virtual prototyping using Delphi programming environment. The example based teaching method is thus applied. There are several potential advantages of example based learning programs, including the ability for people to learn from their home and study without the assistance of an instructor. As the use of computers in life is increasing, all teaching methods and strategies should be renewed to match with the advancement of technology. It means that videos, texts, lessons, homeworks in electronics format should be easily downloaded by any new learner. Flipped classroom for an international challenge: The last experiment deals with a recent collaboration with a Polish University concerning French students in part time course and full course Polish students. The educational system in France offers to students to become workers while taking lessons at university. They are called apprentices. Roughly speaking they share their time one month at the university and one month inside their company. At the university, the students must participate to a one week international seminar as mentioned in their syllabus. For a couple of years, this week has been spent at the Warsaw University of Technology. Conversely, the Polish students and their teachers have been invited to participate one week to an educational challenge with students from the Valenciennes Institute of Technology. Due to the restricted time devoted learning and to the negative and positive comments on the feedback, an intensive working week has been built for 2 years in both countries. Base on the internet connection, the teaching and practicing week can be considered as a kind of a flipped classroom. The paper describes the French system for apprentices and two examples of the international challenge.
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Papers by Aurel FRATU