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A Remote Laboratory for Electrical Experiments

Ingvar Gustavsson

Department of Telecommunications and Signal Processing The Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden

Abstract

Many laboratory experiments in electrical engineering courses can be performed remotely using real equipment. Conventional electrical circuit experiments have been conducted over the Internet at BTH (Blekinge Tekniska Högskola: The Blekinge Institute of Technology) in Sweden from different locations simultaneously using an experimental hardware setup in a closed room at BTH. This is neither a simulation nor a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) application. The students control the instruments in the same way as they would in the local laboratory. The only difference is that they do not form the circuits and connect the test probes manually. Not only the experiment itself is important but also the measurement procedure and the handling of the instruments.

Introduction

Real experiments are indispensable in engineering education for developing skills to deal with physical processes and instrumentation. Laboratory exercises are integrated into many courses in electrical engineering. The traditional way of conducting an experiment is to go to a university laboratory. Students work in teams at a laboratory and receive tutorial help from teachers.

During the last decades the author and others have noted a trend towards increased use of virtual labs, i.e. simulations in electrical engineering education1. One obvious reason is the fact that physical experiments are expensive to maintain, and rooms with special arrangements are needed to accommodate a number of identical lab stations. Such premises can hardly be used for other purposes. Another possible reason is the persistence of the belief that virtual labs can replace physical experiments.

Virtual labs are software simulations of physical processes and devices. They can help to illustrate complex phenomena during classroom teaching as well as in individual training. The ability to simulate a process is clearly helpful in finding solutions to many real-world problems. Thus, knowledge of modeling and simulation are important skills for engineers working in industry or

Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright Ó 2002, American Society for Engineering Education

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Gustavsson, I. (2002, June), A Remote Laboratory For Electrical Experiments Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10624