1. Doctoral Consortium Research Methods Course
Overview on remote laboratories some representative laboratories and projects in the electrical engineering domain
Ricardo Costa /
Doctoral Consortium Research Methods Course
Coimbra
29th January 2010
March 2006

2. Presentation outline Introduction
Background on laboratory work and laboratory types
Educational and technical issues
Examples of remote laboratories
Netlab – University of South Australia
MIT iLab – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (EUA)
VISIR Project (Deusto Weblab) - University of Deusto (Spain)
NUS Laboratory – National University of Singapore
Other projects
Conclusions and a future direction
March 2006

3. Introduction In the last years there was a technology evolution;
People adopted technology in their lives (e.g. Internet, PCs, mobile devices, etc.)
So…
it was an opportunity for applying technology to education
motivating students for learning;
Currently…
technologies (internet + PC) are playing an important role in education
providing flexibility for students and teachers.
(e.g. Virtual Learning Environments like Moodle).
However…
Sciences & Engineering courses require laboratory work
(experimental work) which are not included in those environments !

4. Background on laboratory work and lab. types
Practical Work
Theoretical Work
Sciences & Engineering
courses
Documents,
Images,
animations,
Etc.
Exercises
Research
Group activities
Simulations
Laboratory work
(experimental work)
VLE -Virtual Learning Environments
Is it possible to use technology
(Internet + PCs) to facilitate/improve the conduction of experimental work ?
Videoconference tools
Personal Computers

5. Background on laboratory work and lab. types
Students must be physically
in the laboratory and the equipment is real.
Students interact with both simulated
and real equipment.
Traditional labs
(hands-on labs)
Hybrid labs
Laboratory work
(experimental work)
Virtual labs
(simulated labs)
Remote labs
(weblabs)
Students can interact with real equipment from everywhere at anytime using a simple device (PC, smart phone or mobile phone, etc.)
connected to the internet.
Locally, students conduct experiments using equipment modeled by software.
Real results
Flexibility
Collaboration
Motivation
Costs may be reduced, etc.

6. Educational and technical issues
Remote labs
(weblabs)
Educational issues: concern the requirements that a remote laboratory should meet to provide all the facilities to achieve good learning and teaching processes.
Technical issues: concern the way each Educational issue should be technically implemented.

7. Educational and technical issues
Following ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology)
laboratory work should provide:
Conceptual understanding - activities should help students understand, solve problems and illustrate concepts and principles;
Design skills - students should learn how to design, construct and research;
Social skills - students must run laboratory activities not only individually but also in groups;
Professional skills - technical skills and practical knowledge should be provided.
Literature review conducted in
2006 by Ma and Nickerson based
on 37 selected papers (2006)

8. Educational and technical issues
Conceptual model of a remote laboratory infrastructure
plus the involved actors.
Etc.
Etc.

9. Educational and technical issues
PXI chassis
Remote lab
infrastructure
LabVIEW interface

10. Examples of remote laboratories
Netlab - University of South Australia (UniSA)
RC Transient Analysis, AC Phasor Analysis, Series Resonant Circuit and RC Filter
Virtual Instrumentation Software Architecture (VISA)
Circuit Builder; Collaborative tools; Booking system (real-time control mode)
Website available in:
Booking system
Web interface

11. Examples of remote laboratories
iLab – MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology (EUA)
Chemical eng., polymer crystallization, structural eng., signal processing, microelectronics
iLab Shared Architecture (ISA): i) Client; ii) Service Broker; iii) Lab Server
Adopted NI-Elvis platform from NI for creating electrical laboratories.
Website available in:
NI-Elvis platform
(2006)
Microelectronics lab
ISA architecture

12. Examples of remote laboratories
VISIR Project
VISIR consortium: FH Campus Wien and Carinthia University of Applied Sciences - Austria, University of Deusto - Spain, University of Genoa - Italy, Gunadarma University - Indonesia and Uninova - Portugal.
Goal: Create an open laboratory platform for the reuse of software modules;
Ruled by the IVI Foundation - standard instrument programming interfaces;
University of Deusto example
Electronics workbench;
The website:
Virtual
breadboard
Virtual instrument shelf

13. Examples of remote laboratories
NUS laboratory - National University of Singapore
Experiments: frequency modulation; coupled tank, 2D and 3D oscilloscope, helicopter and Robotic Soccer;
Follows a double client-server architecture (client-webserver-controller);
The website is available in:
Frequency modulation experiment
Architecture

14. Other projects

15. Conclusions and a future direction
There is an widespread of remote laboratories in S&E courses;
Remote laboratories improve the S&E courses providing more and better laboratorial experiments (they are complementing traditional laboratories);
But… remote laboratories follow specific and distinct technical implementations, with several hardware and software architectures. There is no standard solution for creating remote laboratory infrastructures which creates some problems:
collaboration among institutions is weak, because it is difficult the reuse and interface different instruments/modules (I&M) used by a specific experiment;
some institutions do not apply weblabs in their courses because they don’t have the required technical skills;
costs may be high, since creating a weblab infrastructure requires a PC and associated software, together with several instruments (eventually comprehending several futures not required in a specific experiment), and;
an architecture based on a single PC poses constraints for running several experiments, requiring scheduling techniques.

16. Conclusions and a future direction
Solution: adopt reconfigurable devices like FPGA-based Boards following the IEEE Std. (which is a std. for interfacing smart transducers).
FPGA-based Boards + IEEE Std.

17. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION
Ricardo Costa
Contacts: or
March 2006

18. FPGA-based Board example
Spartan-3E Starter Kit - XILINX
A/D and D/A
LCD display
I/O ports
Ethernet port
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19. IEEE Std.
IEEE Standard for a Smart Transducer Interface for Sensors and Actuators — Common Functions, Communication Protocols, and Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS) Formats.
Approved on 2007.
This standard provides a common basis for members of the IEEE 1451 family of standards to be interoperable. It defines the functions that are to be performed by a transducer interface module (TIM) and the common characteristics for all devices that implement the TIM. It specifies the formats for Transducer Electronic Data Sheets (TEDS). It defines a set of commands to facilitate the setup and control of the TIM as well as reading and writing the data used by the system. Application programming interfaces (APIs) are defined to facilitate communications with the TIM and with applications.
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20. IEEE 1451.0 Std. – reference model (I)
TIM - Transducer Interface Module
NCAP –
Network
Capable
Application
Processor
TEDS -
Transducer Electronic Data Sheet
2/3

21. IEEE 1451.0 Std. – reference model (II)
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