The Prospects of Virtual Laboratories in Engineering Education across Africa – A Case Study in Electrical Engineering
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A lot of African countries are underdeveloped owing to the lack of good education. In
most African countries the poor economic health is responsible for the lack of proper infrastructure
in the education sector. Therefore, the need for alternative means to educate the future generation
arises. In Engineering a lot of laboratory work and apparatus are required, whereas only a few
Universities can afford this. In Electrical Engineering for instance,” electrical machines” is a very
vital topic that requires a lot of laboratory work. The analysis of induction machines is very
expensive to experiment on in the lab, and this machine is the most widely used in the industry.
This educational gap means that graduates are underequipped and unable to perform optimally in
the industry without rigorous training exercise. This study investigates the use of a virtual
laboratory (LabVIEW) to model and analyse induction motors with the aim of achieving results
that closely conform to the standard characteristics of induction motors. The results obtained
confirm that the use of virtual laboratories should be encouraged where finance is a problem as
accurate results were obtained from the study.
Keywords
TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering