Systems Engineering asan Undergraduate Degree

Federal University of Minas Gerais - UFMG School of Engineering

Oriane Magela NetoAssociate Professor of the Department of

Electrical Engineering

• Systems Engineering is a multidisciplinary field

of engineering which focuses on developing and

integrating complex systems.

• It concentrates on the design and application of

the whole system as distinct from the parts.

Technical and social aspects of the system design

and application should be related.

Systems Engineering

1. Brief History

2. The Structure of the Course

3. Facilities

4. The System Engineering Profession in Brazil

5. Progress

Summary

1. Brief History

1.1 The School of Engineering of UFMG 11 undergraduate courses; 09 graduate courses; approximately 5,500 students; One hundred years of history.

1.2 The REUNI Program It was launched in 2008; Special budgets for undergraduate courses.

1.3 The Systems Engineering Course

It was proposed in the Department of Electrical Engineering in 2008, approved in the University Council in 2009 and started in 2010;

It was proposed by professors involved in the Electrical Engineering Graduate Program who belong to the research groups of Optimisation and Computational Intelligence;

It is an evening hours Course with 12 terms (semesters).

• The Systems Engineering Undergraduate

Course is basically structured in two main routes;

• a technical and scientific route;

• a route of Humanities.

• Each route is divided into 03 stages and they

are integrated among themselves.

2. The Structure of the Course

2.1 The Technical and Scientific Route

Basic stage: mathematics, physics, statistics and computing;

Intermediate stage: modelling and analysis of engineering systems involving the subjects of electromagnetism, thermodynamics, aerodynamics, electric circuits, control systems, chemical processes etc . The approach here is computational;

Systems engineering stage: optimisation, computational intelligence (neural networks, fuzzy systems etc); theory of decision; reliability; software engineering, project management etc. This stage comes straight from the Graduate Course in Electrical Engineering.

2.2 The route of Humanities

First stage – the fundaments of Humanities: philosophy, history, theories of society, psychoanalysis etc;

Second stage : languages, literature, music, theater, dancing, arts, team work;

Contact with society: social activity and/or social project. A project involving the students of the Systems Engineering Course and teenagers accomplishing educational and social measures by law has been already implemented.

2.4 Project Laboratories

Particularly important in the Course structure: five laboratories from the 5th to the 9th term and

one multiphysics laboratory in the 8th term; General idea of practising engineering and

innovating in engineering; The students should design, test and integrate

softwares, hardwares, instruments, equipments and devices.

Humanities will be also present in the ‘Project Laboratories’, observing and investigating matters such as ethics; scientific and technical culture; politics; ergonomy; science, technology and society etc;

Motivation for the students become themselves consultants and/or entrepreneurs in Systems Engineering.

2.4 Novelties

‘Tutorials’ have been already implemented: one professor for a group of five students;

Flexibility and unconventional disciplines, mainly in the Humanities route;

The student may make his own route in a part of the Course. This route should be approved in the System Engineering Course Council;

Systems Engineering Week every year starting from this year with lectures, seminars, workshops and an assessment of the Course.

3. Facilities

The Systems Engineering Course uses all the computational facilities of the School of Engineering of UFMG;

The laboratories used by the Systems Engineering Course are those of the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Department of Electronics Engineering. The special budget of the Course has been mainly spent in modernising those laboratories.

4. Systems Engineering as a Profession

The Brazilian Federal Council of Engineering and Architecture has a Resolution dated August, the 22nd of 2005 in which the activities of a Systems Engineer are included in the ‘big field’ of Electrical Engineering: www.confea.org.br/serviços

5. Progress

We are finishing now the third term of the Course;

In the two competitions for enrolling in the Course the ratio of candidates per position was 9/1;

www.sistemas.eng.ufmg.br