The laboratory of software tools for artificial intelligence and robotics at the department of information technology gives Software Engineering students an opportunity to try and improve their practical skills in the development and programming of microelectronic devices, autonomous robots and cyberphysical systems. There are such courses like basics of electronics and computer circuits, computer architecture, microcontrollers programming and robotics, students learn the arithmetic and logic basics of computer circuits, the structure and principles of combinational and sequential operation circuits, architecture of AVR microcontrollers, STM32 based on ARM Cortex M0-M4, Cypress PSoC (programmable crystal systems), peripherals.
Using specialized prototyping boards and modules, students learn how to create microcontroller systems and related applications to implement simple tasks and more complex, using network protocol stacks, wireless solutions, Internet of Things and Smart Things concepts. The focus is on software architecture design, compliance with professional embedded software standards, real-time operating systems, and Embedded Linux. In 2018, Software Engineering students won the All-Ukrainian Student Olympiad in the programming of firmware and microcontroller systems.
In addition, the laboratory has a robotics club, where students create autonomous mobile robots – autonomous car racing models that can follow the track, avoid obstacles and overtake opponents without participation of humans using artificial intelligence. By the way, teams of Software Engineering students were multiple winners of Roborace competitions, Lviv Polytechnic Cup for autonomous robot races, and the second stage of the All-Ukrainian Student Olympiad in Robotics.