A FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS LABORATORY WITH LOCAL AND REMOTE WORKBENCHES IN A GRID

A Flexible Electronics Laboratory with Local and

Remote Workbenches in a Grid
I Gustavsson1, J. Zackrisson1, K. Nilsson1, J. Garcia-Zubia2, L. Håkansson1, I. Claesson1, and T. Lagö3
1 Blekinge Institute of Technology/Signal Processing, Ronneby, Sweden
2 University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain
3 Axiom EduTech AB, Falkenberg, Sweden

Abstract—The Signal Processing Department (ASB) at cost tools are often hand calculations and simulations. The
Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) has created two use of computer simulations has increased very much in
online lab workbenches; one for electrical experiments and engineering education in the last few decades however, to
one for mechanical vibration experiments, mimicking and properly assess differences between mathematical models
supplementing workbenches in traditional laboratories. For and the real world, experiments are clearly indispensable
several years now, the workbenches have been used [4, 5]. On the other hand, traditional laboratories have
concurrently with on-site ones in regular, supervised lab limited accessibility and high running costs.
sessions. The students are encouraged to use them on a 24/7 Nowadays, students want extended accessibility to
basis for example, in preparation for supervised sessions.
learning resources and increased freedom to organize their
The electronic workbench can be used simultaneously by
learning activities, which is also one of the main
many students. The aim of a project known as VISIR
objectives of the Bologna Process. From a technological
(Virtual Systems in Reality) founded by ASB at the end of
perspective, such flexible education corresponds to an
2006, is to disseminate the online lab workbenches using
open source technologies. The goal is to create a template
adequate exploitation of information, communication
for a grid laboratory where the nodes are workbenches for
devices and infrastructures, especially the Internet. Today,
electrical experiments, located at different universities. This many academic institutions offer a variety of web-based
paper focuses on standards, pedagogical aspects, and experimentation environments, so called remote
measurement procedure requirements. laboratories, that support remotely operated physical
experiments [6-9]. This is one way to compensate for the
Index Terms—Electronics, Grid, Remote labs, Workbench. reduction of lab sessions with face-to-face supervision.
The remote, or online laboratories around the world, are
used in a variety of disciplines. However, the wide range
I. INTRODUCTION of user interfaces is a problem for students and teachers.
For centuries, scientists have performed physical Efforts are being made to address this situation. The iLabs
experiments in order to verify and test theories, and to project at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the
create proper mathematical models, to describe reality USA, for example, has developed a suite of software tools
well enough. Such experiments are the only way to that facilitates online complex laboratory experiments, and
“communicate” with nature and to learn its principles. provides an infrastructure for user management [10]. A
Only recently has it become evident that mankind must somewhat different approach would be to create a grid
live in symbiosis with nature and focus on sustainability laboratory where the nodes are online lab workbenches,
and understanding. Thus, the demand for experimenters distributed among a number of universities or other
will increase. However, during recent decades, the amount organizations. In such a laboratory, intended for the same
of hands-on laboratory work, for example, in engineering type of experiments, it would be possible to organize
education has been reduced. The prime cause is clearly supervised lab sessions with as many students, or student
due to the task of handling the dramatically increased teams working concurrently as are optimal, for one
number of students, whilst staff and funding resources instructor. Such supervised lab sessions could, for
have scarcely changed [1]. example, take place in a traditional laboratory where some
Reducing the number of lab sessions is easy because students could use the local lab workbenches and others
laboratory work is seldom evaluated, and the cost could perform the experiments remotely, on distant grid
reduction obtained is often considerable. However, for nodes. Then it should be possible for each university to
example, ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and offer more time in the laboratory for its students.
Technology) in the USA has demonstrated that learning In 1999, ASB began a remote laboratory project.
objectives for laboratory work must exist and Today, ASB has two online lab workbenches; one for
subsequently, be evaluated [2, 3]. Thus, the amount of electrical experiments and one for mechanical vibration
hands-on laboratory work in a course must be correlated experiments, based on the BTH Open Laboratory concept
to its learning objectives. Unfortunately, a substantial rise [11]. The concept is about providing new possibilities for
in base funding resources is unlikely to manifest itself in a students to do laboratory work and become experimenters,
real life environment. by adding online lab workbenches to traditional
It is, of course, fundamental for students to understand instructional laboratories to make them more accessible
theories and mathematical models. Appropriate and low for students, whether they are on campus or mainly off

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 A FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS LABORATORY WITH LOCAL AND REMOTE WORKBENCHES IN A GRID

campus. These workbenches are equipped with a unique an example, a lab workbench in an instructional laboratory
interface enabling students to recognize, on their own for low-frequency analog electronics at BTH is shown in
computer screen, the instruments and other equipment that Fig. 1. The student wires a test circuit on the breadboard
most of them have previously used in the local laboratory. using his/her fingers and uses instruments to measure
At the end of 2006, ASB started the VISIR project what s/he cannot perceive directly with human senses as,
together with National Instruments in the USA and Axiom for example, the electrical current. Experiments that are
EduTech in Sweden, to disseminate the online laboratories possible to perform in this environment are mainly limited
at BTH using open source technologies. Axiom EduTech by the set of components provided by the instructor.
is a supplier of education, technical software, and In instructional laboratories at most universities, there
engineering services for noise and vibration analysis. The are a number of lab workbenches where the same number
project is financially supported by BTH and by of students, or usually a pair of students, perform
VINNOVA (Swedish Governmental Agency for experiments supervised by an instructor. The students are
Innovation Systems). permitted to be in the laboratories only during lab sessions
What type of instructional laboratory would be feasible when an instructor is present. The number of lab
for creating a template for a grid laboratory? There are workbenches in a laboratory is usually selected,
reasons for starting with a grid laboratory for electrical considering how many students an instructor can
experiments: supervise if a workbench is not too expensive. Typically,
electronics instructional laboratories are equipped with
• There are electronics laboratories at most universities eight identical workbenches. Fewer lab workbenches
around the world containing the same equipment, mean more teaching hours per course but less investment.
(oscilloscopes, waveform generators, multi-meters, It is a pedagogical advantage if the lab workbenches are
power supplies, and solderless breadboards) although identical because the students can then perform the same
models and manufacturers may vary. Such number of experiments in each session and in the correct
laboratories are already in a way, a de facto standard. order as required by the syllabus. Alternatively, it implies
larger investments i.e. more duplicates of each instrument
• There are standards defining the functionality for [9].
instruments common in an electronics laboratory.
In electronics, it is possible to perform the same
The IVI Foundation is a group of end user
experiment in different time scales by selecting the values
companies, system integrators, and instrument of the components controlling the time constants properly.
vendors, working together defining standard This “feature” is used in the online electronics laboratory
instrument programming interfaces [12]. at BTH containing only one workbench to allow
• Today, BTH has an online electronics laboratory simultaneous access by time sharing. A single workbench
running in regular education where the software can replace a whole laboratory with many workbenches.
produced is released as open source code [13]. The maximum duration of a single experiment i.e. circuit
creation and measurement procedure is currently set to 0.1
This template can be used for designing grid second to get a reasonable response time even with a large
laboratories for other areas of interest. ASB has identified number of experimenters. The experiments are set up
a laboratory for mechanical vibration experiments as a locally in each client computer. Only by pressing a
strategic and appropriate candidate, because those lab Perform Experiment button the experimenter sends a
workbenches are very expensive and mathematical models message containing a description of the desired circuit and
generally provide a too simplified picture of the reality, the instrument settings to the workbench (server). If the
even for introductory courses. Measured vibration signals
frequently exhibit complicated properties compared to the
vibration signal models frequently utilized in education.
Selecting appropriate estimators and estimator settings,
enabling extraction of different accurate estimates of
vibration quantities from measured vibration signals,
generally provides a substantial challenge for the
inexperienced person. Moreover, the dynamic properties
of a mathematical model of a structure and the actual
dynamic properties of said structure, generally differ. Of
significance; an online mechanical vibration laboratory
provides the opportunity for engineering students to
access the practical and theoretical knowledge
advancement in experimental vibration analysis that is
highly attractive for the industry.

II. THE OPEN ELECTRONICS LAB AT BTH

An experiment is a set of actions and observations,
performed in the context of solving a particular problem.
Experiments are cornerstones in the empirical approach to
acquire a deeper knowledge of the physical world but also
an important approach to verify that a model is accurate
enough. The experimenter sets up, and operates, the Figure 1. Workbench in a local electronics laboratory at BTH
experiment with his/her hands and/or with actuators. As

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 A FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS LABORATORY WITH LOCAL AND REMOTE WORKBENCHES IN A GRID

workbench is not occupied, the experiment procedure is

performed in a predefined order, and the result or an error
message is returned to the requesting client computer.
Otherwise, the request is queued.
The online lab workbench at BTH is different when
compared with the traditional one in Fig.1. It is, of course,
not possible for students to manipulate the components
and to remotely wire a desired circuit on the breadboard
using their fingers. A telemanipulator e.g. a relay
switching matrix must be used. The instruments are plug-
in boards installed in a PXI chassis connected to a host
computer as shown in Fig. 2. This chassis and its contents
are manufactured by National Instruments. The
corresponding virtual front panels are photographs of the Figure 3. Screen dump showing the oscilloscope
front panels of the instruments in Fig. 1. As an example, a
screen-dump, displaying the oscilloscope, is shown in Fig.
3. The card stack on the top of the PXI chassis in Fig. 2 is experiments afterwards! Inexperienced or less
the switching matrix. A subset of the components a confident students requiring more time, appreciate
teacher or the laboratory staff has installed in the matrix is these possibilities. A student wanting, for example,
displayed on the client computer screen adjacent to a to master the oscilloscope, can practice in the privacy
virtual breadboard where the student wires the desired of his/her own home.
circuit to control the matrix. It is possible to assemble a
circuit with up to 16 nodes by engaging a number of So far, the research has been focused on recreating as
relays in the matrix. Apart from a controller board, the accurately as possible, the laboratory experience for a
card stack contains two types of board: one with remotely based learner.
component sockets and one for connecting instruments.
The nodes passing all boards can be connected to sources, III. THE VISIR PROJECT
instruments, and/or components installed in the sockets The aim of the VISIR project is to form a group of
via relay switches. The online electronics laboratory at cooperating universities and other organizations, a VISIR
BTH is used in three ways: Consortium, creating/modifying software modules for
• In supervised lab sessions in the local laboratory online laboratories using open source technologies and
where students can select if they want to perform the setting up online lab workbenches [15]. A number of such
experiments locally or remotely. However, in the scattered lab workbenches may be nodes in a grid
first lab session, it is mandatory to do the wiring on laboratory. The VISIR Initiative is not confined to
the real breadboard. electronics laboratories but the VISIR project has started
with lab workbenches for electrical experiments, since this
• In supervised lab sessions for distance learning is an easy and straightforward application to demonstrate
courses, where the students are scattered all over the the powerful concept. So far, the following universities are
country. Remote desktop software and MS participating, or are interested in participating in the
Messenger has been used to communicate between project; FH Campus Wien in Austria, University of
the students themselves and between the students and Deusto in Spain, University of Genoa in Italy, Princess
the instructor. More advanced means of Sumaya University for Technology in Jordan, Carinthia
communication will be adopted [14]. University of Applied Sciences in Austria, Gunadarma
University in Indonesia, UNINOVA (Institute for the
• Students can prepare supervised lab sessions and Development of New Technologies) in Portugal, and ISEP
perform the experiments at home, knowing that the (Instituto Superior de Engenahria do Porto) in Portugal.
equipment in the traditional laboratory looks and The first two universities have already implemented
behaves in a similar fashion. They can also repeat online workbenches using the currently released software.
BTH will act as a hub for the development and maintain a
server from which the current version of the software can
be downloaded.
The overall goal of the VISIR project is aimed at
increasing access to experimental equipment in many
areas for students, without raising the running cost per
student significantly for the universities. The means, are
shared online laboratories created by universities in
cooperation and supported by instrument vendors. Sharing
of laboratories may lead to sharing of course material. The
ultimate goal of the research at BTH is ubiquitous
physical experimental resources, accessible 24/7 for
everyone, gender neutral, as a means of inspiring and
encouraging children, young people and others to study
engineering and become good professionals or to be used
Figure 2. Equipment Server as a means of life-long learning.

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 A FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS LABORATORY WITH LOCAL AND REMOTE WORKBENCHES IN A GRID

IV. A GRID LABORATORY FOR ELECTRICAL

EXPERIMENTS
Grid computing has emerged as a way to harness and
take advantage of computing resources across geographies
and organizations. Grid architecture for an electronics
laboratory similar to the BTH one has already been
published [16, 17]. In this grid-based laboratory, a
measurement workflow execution service takes care of
executing the measures according to the rules and
sequence described in a measurement workflow
repository. It invokes instrument services and manages
multi-user concurrent sessions on the same physical test
bench. The composition of measurement workflows is in
charge to teachers, who provide the description of the
measurement process in terms of, for example, Figure 5. Wring service
instruments activation process. On the other hand,
knowing how to handle the measurement process is an Instrument I/O is a well-studied domain with
important part of lab assignments. To display a transient established industrial standards. Most commercial
on the oscilloscope, for example, the oscilloscope must products follow the Virtual Instrument System
first be armed and then the transient is activated. Each Architecture (VISA) or the Interchangeable Virtual
student, or student team, in front of a client computer Instrument (IVI) standards [18]. The IVI foundation
should have a workbench at their own disposal for creates instrument class specifications. There are currently
exclusive access, as in the local laboratory. Then the eight classes, defined as DC power supply, Digital multi-
Perform Experiment button in the BTH laboratory is no meter (DMM), Function generator, Oscilloscope, Power
longer required. meter, RF signal generator, Spectrum analyzer, and
It should be possible to organize a grid laboratory Switch. Within each class, a base capability group and
distributed among universities around the world. The multiple extension capability groups are defined. Base
workbenches should be the proper grid nodes. Smaller capabilities are the functions of an instrument class that
nodes are not feasible because the instruments and the are common to most of the instruments available in the
circuit under test must be located closely together. The class. For an oscilloscope, for example, this means edge
instruments and the circuit creation manipulator would be triggering only. Other triggering methods are defined as
device services accessible by the lab clients via virtual extension capabilities. For example, the functions
front panels or a virtual breadboard, Fig. 4, 5. Web supported by the VISIR oscilloscope are listed in Table 1.
services prescribe XML-based messages conveyed by The goal of the IVI Foundation is to support 95% of the
Internet protocols such as SOAP. However, real time instruments in a particular class.
performance requires protocols without significant It is not necessary to use IVI drivers, but to enable
latencies and overhead. For example, the oscilloscope interchangeability between grid nodes VISIR recommends
display should be updated at least every second. functions and attributes defined by the IVI Foundation to
It is possible to combine a virtual front panel be used to describe the capabilities of the lab hardware. In
representing a particular instrument from one this way it should be possible to create a standardized
manufacturer with the corresponding hardware from approach which is easy to adopt.
another, as long as the performance of the hardware
matches that of the displayed instrument. The VISIR
TABLE I.
client software package is modular and it is recommended THE VISIR OSCILLOSCOPE CAPABILITIES
that every university creates virtual front panels
representing the instruments they have in their local Group Name Description
laboratories to preserve the student’s context.
IviScopeBase Base Capabilities of the IviScope
Lab client computer Grid node
specification. This group includes
the capability to acquire waveforms
Internet using edge triggering.
IviScopeWavefor Extension: IviScope with the ability
mMeas to calculate waveform
Instrument measurements, such as rise time or
Lab client
routine
Control frequency.
routine
IviScopeTrigger Extension: IviScope with the ability
Modifier to modify the behavior of the
triggering subsystem in the absence
of a expected trigger.
Virtual Front Panel Oscilloscope Board IviScopeAutoSet Extension: IviScope with the
Figure 4. Oscilloscope service up automatic configuration ability.

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 A FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS LABORATORY WITH LOCAL AND REMOTE WORKBENCHES IN A GRID

V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK [9] J. Garcia-Zubia et al., ”WebLab-GPIB at the University of
Deusto”, Proceedings of the REV 2007 Conference, Porto,
BTH is disseminating software for an online Portugal, June 25 – 27, 2007.
workbench, comprising the same equipment as a [10] iLabs: Internet access to real labs - anywhere, anytime,
workbench in a traditional electronics laboratory. The http://icampus.mit.edu/iLabs/, 2007-07-20.
equipment used in the BTH workbenches form robust [11] L. Gomes and J. Garcia-Zubia (eds), Chapter 11 in Advances on
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implementing similar remote or online laboratories. A Deusto, Bilbao, Spain, 2007, pp. 247 – 267, ISBN 978-84-9830-
077-2.
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Opened for Remote Operation and Control", Proceedings of the
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