In the paper the authors propose an original solution to perform the remote control of measurement instrumentation, with the aim of realizing the experimental section of an E-Learning portal of Electrical and Electronic Measurement courses, based on Web Services implemented in Visual Basic.Net. The .Net technology proves to overcome drawbacks typically affecting most of the techniques for remote instrument control till now adopted, allowing, at the same time, the integration among different softwares and communication protocols and the connection to measurement stations only by means of a common browser. Web Services use, in fact, XML language, that is well understood by each program, and SOAP protocol, which is recognized by any software environment supporting communication over Internet. Details of the implemented Web Service are given in the following, focusing the attention on the utilities provided by Visual Basic.Net for the management of connections (as queuing procedure, reading of UDDI registry, polling of the administered servers) and implementation an E-Learning portal.

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A technique for remote management of instrumentation based on web services

This communication describes a learning platform which is being developed at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in Barcelona, Spain. The goal was to solve the trade-off between the need for performing real laboratory practices in engineering education and the emergent implantation of distance learning in our curricula. Most of our courses in electronic engineering have 50% of the load devoted to laboratory work. The semi-distance EE degree allows the students to carry out at home the theory and problems study but keeps the in-situ laboratories. We developed a previous remote laboratory, based on a VXT system, an experiments board and a Web-server that is working since 2002 but which cannot serve simultaneous users and which is difficult to expand and maintain. The workbench we propose intends to preserve the experimental work but allowing the students to perform a variable number of laboratory activities remotely, using the same platform than the in-situ laboratories. This approach preserves not only the feeling of reality but the knowledge of the experimental set-up features. The subject of the experience is the sensors and signal conditioning laboratory. The solution is based on a modular set of electronic boards. Two kind of base or mother boards allow the connection of several daughterboards which implement the different experiments. One of the motherboards is only intended for in-situ experiments but the other includes an Ethernet capable microcontroller and A/D and D/A converters which allow the realisation of both in-situ and remote laboratory activities over the same set-up. The microcontroller firmware is based on a command parser that accepts SCPI strings. The board is controlled through LabView drivers which use the TCP/IP sockets and the specific applications can be controlled using remote panels in LabView 7.1 both in-situ and remotely. Access control, register and scheduling will be performed using the UPC virtual campus Atenea, which is implemented using Moodle (modular object oriented distance learning environment).

Modular Workbench for In-Situ and Remote Laboratories

Automatic test equipment (ATE) is a term that, in its broadest meaning, indicates a generic system capable of performing measurements in an automatic or semiautomated (human-assisted) way. Years ago, this term was used specifically to refer to an automated measurement system employed to test the functionality of some electronic device-under-test (DUT). Typical applications were in the manufacturing area, where ATE had a twofold nature: in-circuit testing and functional testing. For in-circuit testing, ATE often were stand-alone complex programmable machines, equipped with a bed-of-nails adapter specifically designed as a fixture to provide signal inputs and meaningful test-points of the DUT. The test engineer had the responsibility of writing code that determined the exact sequence of stimulus signals, response measurements, and go/no-go decisions. For this aim, a switch matrix and the ATE itself were suitably controlled and coordinated by a workstation. For functional testing, ATE consisted of off-the-shelf instruments connected to the DUT by some kind of front-end adapter. In the latter case, most of the effort of the test engineer consisted of designing a program to control the various instruments to assess DUT performances. When planning the use of a dedicated testing machine as opposed to a test bench, other factors were taken into account: measurement speed, cost, and fault coverage.

Networking automatic test equipment environments

The impact of blended learning in improving the reaction, achievement and return on investment of industrial automation training

This paper presents an innovative acquisition, analysis and processing software for many GPS data bit streams provided from an electronic receiver, it is able to extract a great variety of information remotely and make possible monitoring it from Internet using IP. Some other technologies are needed on this application such a web server and ZigBee antennas in order to test the platform performance in a homing robot. The graphical interface design presented describes what data are acquired. Finally the results confirm the GPS location according the dispersion index in real time.

GPS data analysis and acquisition software over IP platform

This paper presents solutions for the development of test procedures that require remote control of instrumentation through the network At first, a brief critical summary of some existing technologies is reported and commented Then, an architecture based on a multiserver-multiclient paradigm is described The architecture provides instrumentation management in a device-independent manner, fast development of user applications and supports different network configurations

Platform independent architectures for cooperative remote control of automated test laboratories

E-learning is the one possible evolution of traditional teaching techniques and is becoming a mature technology. Several commercial suites are available to author multimedia courses either to be distributed in physical form (e.g. on CD or DVD) or to be used on-line. However the application of these suites to the instrumentation and measurement courses and in general to courses that require students to learn the use of real devices is difficult and sometime useless. In this paper, some peculiar aspects of the instrumentation and measurement courses are discussed, focusing on the impact of e-learning techniques in laboratory activities. Practical hints coming from the authors' experience in several years of in-the-field trials are reported and discussed.

P.A. Pegoraro

Papers

Platform independent architectures for cooperative remote control of automated test laboratories

E-learning in instrumentation and measurement courses