Improving the Scalability and Replicability of Embedded Systems Remote Laboratories Through a Cost-Effective Architecture

Abstract

Online remote laboratories are a particularly promising tool for effective STEM education. They offer online universal access to different hardware devices in which students can experiment and can test and improve their knowledge. However, most of them have two significant limitations. First, given that most of them are developed as, or evolve from single-user proofs of concept, they have no scalability provisions other than full laboratory replication. And second, when this is done, cost efficiency is often neglected. This paper presents the requirements for the creation of a novel remote laboratory architecture focused on, but not limited to, embedded systems experimentation. An architecture, based on Redis (an open source, in-memory data structure store, which is often used as database, cache or message broker), a modular design, and hardware-sharing techniques, is proposed in order to achieve the combined requirements of high scalability and cost efficiency. This mixed hardware-software architecture serves as a basis for the development of remote laboratories, especially those focused on microcontroller-based systems experimentation and embedded devices experimentation. From a user perspective the architecture is webbased, and has provisions to be easily adaptable to different Learning Management Systems and different hardware embedded devices. A new microcontroller-oriented remote laboratory based on the architecture has been developed, with the aim of providing valid evaluation data, and has been used in a real environment. The architecture and the resulting remote laboratory have been compared with other state of the art remote laboratories and their architectures. Results suggest that the proposed architecture does indeed meet the main requirements, which are scalability through replicability and cost efficiency. Furthermore, similarly to previous architectures, it promotes usability, universal access, modularity and reliability. INDEX TERMS Remote laboratory, scalability, embedded system, online experimentation, architecture. JAVIER GARCÍA-ZUBÍA (M'08-SM'11) received the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of Deusto, Spain. He is currently a Full Professor with the Faculty of Engineering, University of Deusto. He is the Leader of the WebLab-Deusto Research Group. His research interests include remote laboratory design, implementation, and evaluation. DIEGO LÓPEZ-DE-IPIÑA received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge, in 2002. Responsible for several modules in the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in computer engineering, he is interested in pervasive computing, the IoT, semantic service middleware, open linked data, and social data mining. He is currently an Associate Professor and a Principal Researcher with the MORElab Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Deusto. He is taking and has taken part in several big consortium-based research European (EDI, GreenSoul, WeLive, SIM-PATICO, IES CITIES, or GOLAB) and Spanish projects, and has more than

Systematic Approach for State-of-the-Art Architectures and System-on-Chip Selection for Heterogeneous IoT Applications

“…The SoC devices are semiconductor ICs with integrated components that enable the chip to operate as a standalone system. The SoCs has many features integrated on a singlechip, which is also capable of running an operating system on a smart device [6][7][8]. The microcontroller is the core of SoC technology, which is programmable and used for a wide range of embedded real-time applications such as home automation, smart appliances, security applications, etc.…”

A systematic mapping about simulators and remote laboratories using hardware in the loop and robotic: Developing STEM/STEAM skills in pre-university education

“…They are giving a panoramic view of the main issues of developing and using virtual and remote labs for improving science and engineering education [22][23]. Or proposals of new methods [24] for their personalization and an optimal adaptation of the implementation of virtual and remote labs, likewise, propose the creation of a new mixed hardwaresoftware architecture focused on improving the scalability of those architectures [25].…”

Analysis of Students' Behavior Regarding the Use of Open Source Remote Laboratories

“…Moving to open source hardware and software since 2018 allowed to easily duplicate the system and increased its scalability [2]. This change requires respecting a virtuous development cycle common to the industry: development, testing, production, feedback.…”