Development of a web-based laboratory for control experiments on a coupled tank apparatus

Abstract

The Internet provides a new environment for developing a variety of applications for educational and research purposes. This paper presents the implementation of a web-based laboratory experiment on a coupled tank apparatus, a Multiinput-Multioutput (MIMO) system. The web-based laboratory has been developed to serve students and staff in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The laboratory is an educational tool for teaching students the basic principles and methodology in performing a series of experiments on a coupled tank apparatus at any time and from any location through the Internet. With the capability to implement strategies for manual, proportional integral derivative (PID), general state-space, and fuzzy logic control, the laboratory also provides a platform for research staff to test control algorithms. Video conferencing has been used to provide audio and video feedback, with a camera mounted on a movable platform so that the user can control both the zooming and viewing angle. The laboratory can be accessed at http://vlab.ee.nus.edu.sg/vlab/control/.

Remote access laboratories in Australia and Europe

“…Many remote online laboratory experiments have been reported in the literature recently (Trevelyan, 2003a). The development of these laboratories seems to be focused in engineering disciplines, particularly electrical, electronic and computer engineering disciplines Ma and Nickerson, 2006;Aktan et al, 1996;Ko et al, 2001;Borisov, 2008).…”

Open Modular Hardware and Software Kit for Creations of Remote Experiments Accessible from PC and Mobile Devices

“…[26]- [29], or DIY (Do-It-Yourself) development platforms with microcontrollers. Recently we can see remote experiments based on FPGA development platform [30], [31].…”

Modelo de referencia de laboratorios virtuales y aplicación a sistemas de teleeducación

“…Son diversos los laboratorios virtuales que nos podemos encontrar tanto en la bibliografía como en una búsqueda por internet [17,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. En este apartado se han seleccionado algunos que por algún detalle merecen ser comentados.…”

“…La National University of Singapore ha desarrollado un laboratorio virtual que ofrece varios experimentos a sus usuarios [26,27,152].…”

“…Distintos laboratorios virtuales, todos ellos de control remoto, son presentados a lo largo de este año [90,91 (que continúa con [26,27]), 92,93,94,95,96] donde queda claro el concepto de cliente servidor como base de trabajo y el uso de un navegador web como aplicación preferida por su comodidad para el cliente.…”