Internet of Thing (IoT) Based Remote Labs in Engineering

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a laboratory system at the Electrical Engineering Department of Zarqa University based on IoT and mobile application technologies to remotely run, implement and monitor the experiments that are required in the course of work by the student. Throughout a custom designed dashboard on the mobile application, the system, allows the students to extract results on a real time basis and submit their reports once they finish the experiments. The system comprises all the necessary devices, such as sensors, controlling and interfacing kits, cameras and others. Initially, the work is implemented on a Separately Excited DC (SEDC) motor experiment as one of the examples related to Electrical Machines Laboratory (EML) course as part of the courses delivered to the Electrical Engineering Program at Zarqa University. The proposed work mainly intents to provide an off-campus easy accessibility to the assigned experiment through a user-friendly interactive dashboard. For example in this experiment, the student can switch the direction of rotation of the motor and can run the motor at preset conditions with the capability to measure the electrical quantities such as voltage, current and power as well as other required parameters, such as speed and torque. The preliminary results demonstrated a proof of concept for remotely running such experiments via mobile applications, thereby allowing the students to perform their experiments in a fixable yet reliable manner. The work is still in progress and it is anticipated to expand the system to cover other experiments once the work is finalized.