A Novel E-Laboratory for Remote Monitoring and Control

Abstract

An internet-based laboratory for control engineering education is designed and implemented in this paper. This e-laboratory has a physical setup which is constructed for the research of multi-protocol conversion. Configuration software WebAccess is utilized to build the Human-Machine Interface (HMI) and the web server. With this B/S (Browser/server) structure, users can monitor and manipulate the physical setup during and beyond the regular working hours from any web-enabled location. A distinctive feature of this e-laboratory is its flexibility. Firstly, three types of control loops are constructed for flexible implementation of various control algorithms that can be developed by the users. Secondly, some new functionalities can be added easily by reconfiguring the intelligent controller and upper-level computer software. Experiments under different networked environment indicated that such e-laboratory is suitable for the research of NCS (networked control system). This laboratory is primarily designed for control engineering education, though the architecture can easily be extended to many other areas.