Simulation using handhelds

Abstract

Simulation plays an increasingly important role in electronic learning. With computers readily accessible by the students in the modern campus, many courses have an assimilated simulation content. Simulation is especially prominent in engineering courses (such as control engineering), whereby complex mathematical equations alone often elude a good understanding. With the help of a simulation study, students are able to make changes to the parameters of a model and observe the impact of the change on the system performance. This helps to improve their understanding of the system model. Advancement in wireless technology has transmuted electronic learning into mobile education. Mobile education in essence allows the learner the flexibility of time and space to access education resources. In order for mobile education to be pervasive, especially to people on the move, the system has to be adaptable to include affordable handheld mobile devices (e.g. cellular phones). Unfortunately, handheld devices typically have small display units and limited memory space. Running simulation on these handheld devices will be unthinkable if not impossible. In this paper, we propose an innovative method to run simulation on handheld mobile devices. We present the development of a system which will allow the learner to access a remote personal computer (PC) that houses an Excel simulator, and converts the results to a standard picture file format which can then be viewed via cellular data technology (e.g. GPRS). The methods and difficulties involved in the construction of the system will be duly discussed. © 2005 TEMPUS Publications.