Facilities & Resources: FIU, ME and R&A Lab

Florida International University

Florida International University (FIU) is an urban, multi-campus, doctoral-granting institution located in Miami, Florida's largest population center, with campuses at University Park and North Miami, selected programs offered at Davie and Fort Lauderdale, and off-campus continuing education programs. The mission of this state university is to serve the people of Southeast Florida, the state, the nation and the international community by imparting knowledge through excellent teaching, creating new knowledge through research, and fostering creativity and its expression.

Chartered by the Florida Legislature in 1965, the University opened its doors in 1972 to 6,000 students-the largest entering class in United States collegiate history. FIU now offers more than 200 baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degree programs through its nine Colleges and Schools. The University is an accredited member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Student population at FIU is well over 30,000. Of this population, Women students make up roughly 60%, Hispanic 50%, African-American 15%, and Asian 3%, which qualifies FIU as a Minority Institution (MI).

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering Department was established in 1984, accredited in 1987, established master's program in 1989, and Ph.D. program in 1994. The Department has 15 full-time faculty members and several adjunct professors. Currently, over 300 undergraduate and 80 graduate students are enrolled in the Department. Although excellence in teaching is very important, emphasis on research has been rapidly increasing especially after the establishment of graduate programs.

The Mechanical Engineering Department has steadily increased its funding for sponsored research in the past five years. This increase more than doubled the amount of externally-sponsored research grants. While individual research has been encouraged, several focus areas have emerged based on the strengths and capabilities of the faculty and the Department. They include

• Design, Manufacturing and Robotics
• Mechanics and Materials
• Thermal and Fluid Sciences
• Environmental Research
• Materials Science

The growth of externally-funded research is expected to continue and increase for the University, the College and the Mechanical Engineering Department. The number of faculty as well as the number of students enrolled in the Department has also increased significantly during the last five years.

Robotics and Automation Laboratory

The Robotics and Automation Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering is located at the Engineering and Computer Science Building in Room EC 3435. The laboratory houses the following equipment:

• Staubli Unimation Puma 760 six-axis industrial robot
• Mark II controller with the VAL II environment, teach pendant, CRT



• 1 Wyse terminal interfaced to the controller of Puma 760
• Pneumatic gripper and a compressor
• CCD Camera attached to the wrist of the Puma robot
• 2 Intelledex Scara Robots
• Desktop Feedback Robot Arm

• Force-reflecting controller testbed under development
  

• Fault-tolerant testbed under development
• Several Pentium-based PCs
• 1 Macintosh PC
• 2 HP Laser Printers
• Several peripherals

In addition, the group has access to the following equipment:

• Parallel computing facility MAIDROC and Parallel Computer Lab
• Engineering Information Center (EIC) Labs
• Graphics IRIS workstations
• Milling, rapid prototyping and CNC machines