A Remote Laboratory for a Basic Course on Control Engineering

Computers & Education, 2011

New information technologies provide great opportunities for education. One such opportunity is the use of remote control laboratories for teaching students about control systems. This paper describes the creation of interactive remote laboratories (RLs). Two main software tools are used: Simulink and Easy Java Simulations (EJS). The first is a widely used tool in the control community, whereas the second is an authoring tool designed to build interactive applications in Java without special programming skills. The RLs created by this approach give students the opportunity to perform experiments with real equipment from any location, at any time, and at their own pace. The paper ends with an evaluation of this approach according to students' criteria and academic results.

2020

The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Manitoba completed the development of software drivers and interfacing programs to establish a prototype remote control laboratory station. The station, which can be operated from a distance, is called "Lab@Home" and is becoming a part of core control courses in the Faculty of Engineering. This paper presents the motivation behind this initiation as well as step-by-step development of the test station. Typical results obtained by students are also provided.

International Journal of Online Engineering (ijoe), 2010

IEEE Symposium on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, ETFA, 2007

This paper presents an innovative web-based control laboratory focused on the necessity of control education community. The usefulness of the remote laboratory proposed in this paper is justified by the opportunity of organizing the remote experiments, saving time and money to the students.

2006

The development of feasible and cost-effective remote engineering and science laboratories is one of the most important problems facing the progress of online technical education. In this paper, we describe the development of a complete remote laboratory for the instruction of control engineering. Equipped with common industrial sensors and actuators, the system represents temperature and flow processes regulated with an industrial Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). Using local monitoring, we enable students to perform interactive real plant experimentation in control and automation without the overhead incurred in maintaining a full presence laboratory.

2001 Annual Conference Proceedings

Under an NSF-DUE sponsored laboratory development program, we have developed a multidisciplinary mechatronics/process control remote laboratory (MPCRL) consisting of an array of experiments, which expose students to elements of aerospace, mechanical, electrical, civil, and chemical engineering. A new laboratory curriculum and manual have been developed to introduce students to PC-based data acquisition, rapid control prototyping, and control of a multitude of multidisciplinary experimental test-beds. In addition, in summer 2000, we developed the MPCRL web site to facilitate remote access to our laboratory test-beds via the worldwide web. The MPCRL web site features online-experiments, information/navigation/ resource centers, prerecorded videos of experiments, live video stream of online-experiments, and a chat window. The MPCRL supports undergraduate and graduate control courses including the capstone design projects. Finally, its outreach efforts have included summer workshops for graduate and high school students.

Last years, research efforts on the development of virtual and remote laboratories in control engineering education have been reported in many conferences, workshops and journals. However, it is observed that pilot experiences about the utilization of web-based laboratories are not habitual practices. In this paper it is described the pilot experience of the Department of Computer Science and Automatic Control of the Spanish University of Distance Learning (UNED) about the introduction of three web-based laboratories in a course on process control. This experience begins with descriptions of the tools employed to develop client and server-sides and the collaborative environment used to publish the labs in Internet. Attention is due to the concept of task protocol. It consists essentially of an ordered list of activities that students must execute in the virtual and remote mode of each one of the three web-based laboratories. To conclude, results of the pilot experience are given by ...

Proceedings of the 2000 American Control Conference. ACC (IEEE Cat. No.00CH36334), 2000

This paper presents two web-based training approaches carried out at the Control Laboratory of Grenoble on a classical "ball and beam" experiment. This experiment allows comparing the effects of different digital controllers (PD, PID, RST) either with respect to set point changes or to disturbances. It shows, in special cases, an interesting feature due to a negative zero cancellation, giving rise to an oscillatory control signal. This experiment is simulated within a highly interactive web-based workshop. It is also accessible remotely thanks to an Wincon-assisted Simulink-based real-time controller. The first part of the paper presents the complementary pedagogical aspects and the user possibilities of the two web-training tools: the simulation workshop and the remote access system. The second part describes the software/hardware design of the two environments. Finally, examples of practical use of the two network-based training tools at the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble are presented and future developments are discussed.

IEEE Access, 2015

This paper presents an open course in the University Network of Interactive Laboratories, which offers several virtual and remote laboratories on automatic control, accessible to anyone. All the details on one of these labs (a two electric coupled drives system that allows performing control practices in a 2 × 2 MIMO system with industrial applications) and the activities that can be performed with it are given. We use a low-cost solution for developing the virtual and remote labs shared in this open course, based on the use of a free authoring tool Easy Java/Javascript Simulations (EJsS) for building the laboratories' user interfaces and a cheap development platform board (BeagleBone Black). The virtual and remote labs are deployed into a free Learning Management System (Moodle) Web environment that facilitates their management and maintenance.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2010

This paper describes a web based remote automatic control lab, RACL, system. This is a system that enables students do real time control experiments from a remote location (e.g. their homes) using internet and an ordinary web browser. By using this system one can select an experiment, launches that experiment, and examines real time experiment outputs by looking at charts. This system brings hope for reducing costs and improving control education quality.