NI, Cardiff University open controls laboratory

This hands-on approach to teaching control systems will empower the students with practical engineering skills as well as providing familiarity with technologies widely used in today’s industry. This will ultimately allow Cardiff graduates to innovate from day one of their careers. 

NI has a long standing relationship with the Cardiff University with the partnership delivering a new Electronics Engineering laboratory in 2009. NI tools now feature throughout the Engineering Schools’ curriculum, which augments the potential for success of its students.

“I am tremendously excited that Cardiff is standardising on the graphical platform. Not only will this create ease and be of great benefit to the students, it will also allow these future engineers to have hands-on, real experience with some of the most widely used platforms in industry,” says Francis Griffiths, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, National Instruments.

Griffiths, who graduated with a degree in Electronic Engineering from Cardiff University in 1986, recently opened this new laboratory along with Professor Sam Evans, Director of School at Cardiff University, ready for 2017 academic year.

“We always welcome these partnerships with industrial companies, as they allow our students to see how real world engineering can be done in a classroom,”adds Professor Sam Evans, Director of the School of Engineering, Cardiff University.“The specific partnership with NI has grown over time to be a central part of our taught curriculum, offering a similarity of approach to our students across all our Engineering degrees.”

NI has for many years been a part of the School’s industrial advisory board, alongside other influential engineering companies.

This interaction results in students who are well suited to start gainful employment as they have experienced industry throughout their curriculum.“Industrial involvement in a taught curriculum is always a good thing.

This partnership laboratory between NI and the School of Engineering allows us to physically demonstrate real world industrial control systems based upon the NI platform in our taught environment, thus enabling students to explore how the theoretical content of a subject can be actually realised,” says Stephen Watts, Head of Electrical and Electronic Engineer, Cardiff University.