A Flexible Instructional Electronics Laboratory with Local and Remote

Lab Workbenches in a Grid

Ingvar Gustavsson Johan Zackrisson

Blekinge Institute of Technology Blekinge Institute of Technology
Department of Signal Processing Department of Signal Processing
SE-372 25 Ronneby, Sweden SE-372 25 Ronneby, Sweden
[email protected] [email protected]

Kristian Nilsson Javier Garcia-Zubia

Blekinge Institute of Technology University of Deusto
Department of Signal Processing Faculty of Engineering
SE-372 25 Ronneby, Sweden Apdo. 1, 48080 Bilbao, Spain
[email protected] [email protected]

Lars Håkansson Ingvar Claesson

Blekinge Institute of Technology Blekinge Institute of Technology
Department of Signal Processing Department of Signal Processing
SE-372 25 Ronneby, Sweden SE-372 25 Ronneby, Sweden
[email protected] [email protected]

Thomas Lagö
Acticut AB
Gjuterivägen 7
SE-311 32 Falkenberg, Sweden
[email protected]

Abstract
1 Introduction
The Signal Processing Department (ASB) at Blekinge
Institute of Technology (BTH) has created two online During centuries scientists have performed physical
lab workbenches, one for electrical experiments and experiments in order to verify and test theories and
one for mechanical vibration experiments, mimicking create proper mathematical models, describing reality
and supplementing workbenches in traditional labo- well enough. Such experiments are the only way to
ratories. Since some years, the workbenches are used “communicate” with nature and to learn its princi-
concurrently with on-site ones in regular supervised ples, often quite revealing. Only recently, it has been
lab sessions. The students are also free to use them evident that mankind must live in symbiosis with
on their own around the clock e.g. for preparation. nature and focus on sustainability and understanding.
The electronic workbench can be used simultane- Thus, the demand for experimenters will increase.
ously by many students. The aim of a project known However, during recent decades the amount of
as VISIR (Virtual Systems in Reality) founded by ASB hands-on laboratory work, for example, in engineer-
at the end of 2006, is disseminating the online lab ing education has been reduced. The prime cause is
workbenches using open source technologies. The clearly the task of handling the greatly increased stu-
goal is to create a template for a grid laboratory dent numbers, while staff and funding resources have
where the nodes are workbenches for electrical ex- scarcely changed [1].
periments, located at different universities. This pa-
per focuses on standards, pedagogical aspects, and Reducing the number of lab sessions is easy because
measurement procedure requirements. laboratory work is seldom evaluated and the cost
reduction obtained is often considerable. However,
for example, ABET (Accreditation Board for Engi-
neering and Technology) in USA has pointed out that new possibilities for students to do laboratory work
learning objectives for laboratory work must exist and become experimenters by adding online lab
and be evaluated [2, 3]. Thus, the amount of hands- workbenches to traditional instructional laboratories
on laboratory work in a course must be correlated to to make them more accessible for students, whether
the learning objectives of the course. Unfortunately, they are on campus or mainly off campus. These
a substantial rise of base funding resources is not workbenches are equipped with a unique interface
probable. enabling students to recognize on their own computer
It is, of course, also fundamental for students to un- screen the instruments and other equipment most of
derstand theories and mathematical models. Often them have previously used in the local laboratory.
appropriate and low cost tools are hand calculations At the end of 2006, ASB started the VISIR project
and simulations. The use of computer simulations has together with National Instruments in USA and
increased very much in engineering education in the Axiom EduTech in Sweden, to disseminate the
last decades. However, to properly assess differences online laboratories at BTH using open source tech-
between mathematical models and real world, ex- nologies. Axiom EduTech is a supplier of education,
periments are indispensable [4, 5]. On the other hand technical software, and engineering services for noise
traditional laboratories have limited accessibility and and vibration analysis. The project is financially sup-
high running costs. ported by BTH and by VINNOVA (Swedish Gov-
Nowadays, students want an extended accessibility to ernmental Agency for Innovation Systems).
learning resources and increased freedom to organize What type of instructional laboratory would be feasi-
their learning activities which is also one of the main ble for creating a template for a grid laboratory?
objectives of the Bologna Process. From a techno- There are reasons for starting with a grid laboratory
logical perspective, such flexible education corre- for electrical experiments:
sponds to an adequate exploitation of information, • There are instructional electronics laboratories at
communication devices and infrastructures, espe- most universities around the world containing
cially the Internet. Today, many academic institu- the same equipment, (oscilloscopes, waveform
tions offer a variety of web-based experimentation generators, multi-meters, power supplies, and
environments so called remote laboratories that sup- solderless breadboards) although models and
port remotely operated physical experiments [6-9]. manufacturers may vary. Such laboratories are
This is one way to compensate for the reduction of already in a way a de facto standard.
lab sessions with face-to-face supervision.
• There are standards defining the functionality for
The remote or online laboratories around the world
instruments common in an electronics labora-
are used in a variety of disciplines. However, the
tory. The IVI Foundation is a group of end user
wide range of user interfaces is a problem for stu-
companies, system integrators, and instrument
dents and teachers. Efforts are being made to handle
vendors, working together defining standard in-
the situation. The iLabs project at Massachusetts
strument programming interfaces [12].
Institute of Technology in USA, for example, has
developed a suite of software tools that facilitates • Today BTH has an online electronics laboratory
online complex laboratory experiments, and provides running in regular education where the software
the infrastructure for user management [10]. A produced is released as open source [13].
somewhat different approach would be to create a Then this template can be used for designing grid
grid laboratory where the nodes are online lab work- laboratories for other areas. ASB has identified a
benches distributed among a number of universities laboratory for mechanical vibration experiments as
or other organizations. In such a laboratory intended an appropriate candidate because those lab work-
for the same type of experiments it would be possible benches are very expensive and the mathematical
to organize supervised lab sessions with as many models are not accurate enough even for introductory
students or student teams working concurrently as courses.
are optimal for one instructor. Such supervised lab
sessions could, for example, take place in a tradi-
tional laboratory where some students could use the 2 The Open Electronics Lab at BTH
local lab workbenches and others could perform the
experiments remotely on distant grid nodes. Then it An experiment is a set of actions and observations,
should be possible for each university to offer more performed in the context of solving a particular prob-
time in the laboratory for its students. lem. Experiments are cornerstones in the empirical
In 1999, ASB started a remote laboratory project. approach to acquire a deeper knowledge of the physi-
Today ASB has two online lab workbenches, one for cal world but also an important approach to verify
electrical experiments and one for mechanical vibra- that a model is accurate enough. The experimenter
tion experiments, based on the BTH Open Labora- sets up and operates the experiment with his or her
tory concept [11]. The concept is about providing hands and/or with actuators. As an example, a lab
workbench in an instructional laboratory for low- circuit creation and measurement procedure is cur-
frequency analog electronics at BTH is shown in Fig. rently set to 0.1 second to get a reasonable response
1. The student wires a test circuit on the breadboard time even with a large number of experimenters. The
with the fingers and uses instruments to measure experiments are set up locally in each client com-
what s/he cannot perceive directly with the human puter. Only by pressing a Perform Experiment button
senses as, for example, the electrical current. The the experimenter sends a message containing a de-
experiments possible to perform in this environment scription of the desired circuit and the instrument
are mainly limited by the set of components provided settings to the workbench (server). If the workbench
by the instructor. is not occupied, the experiment procedure is per-
formed 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 versus
the traditional one in Fig.1. It is, of course, not possi-
ble for students to manipulate the components and
wire a desired circuit on the breadboard with their
fingers remotely. A type of circuit-wiring robot e.g. a
relay switching matrix must be used. The instruments
are plug-in boards installed in the PXI chassis con-
nected to the 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 front panels of the instruments
in Fig. 1. As an example, a screen dump displaying
the multi-meter is shown in Fig. 3. The card stack on
the top of the PXI chassis in Fig. 2 is the switching
matrix. A subset of the components a teacher or the
laboratory staff has installed in the matrix is dis-
played on the client computer screen adjacent to a
Figure 1: Workbench in a local electronics virtual breadboard where the student wires the de-
laboratory at BTH sired circuit to control the matrix. It is possible to
assemble a circuit with up to 16 nodes by engaging a
In instructional laboratories at most universities, number of relays in the matrix. Apart from a control-
there are a number of lab workbenches where the ler board the card stack contains two types of board:
same number of students or usually pair of students one with component sockets and one for connecting
performs experiments supervised by an instructor. instruments. The nodes passing all boards can be
The students are permitted to be in the laboratories connected to sources, instruments, and/or compo-
only during lab sessions when an instructor is pre- nents installed in the sockets via relay switches. The
sent. The number of lab workbenches in a laboratory online electronics laboratory at BTH is used in three
is usually selected, considering how many students ways:
an instructor can supervise if a workbench is not too
expensive. Typically, electronics instructional labora- • In supervised lab sessions in the local laboratory
tories are equipped with eight identical workbenches. where the students can select if they want to
Fewer lab workbenches mean more teaching hours perform the experiments locally or remotely.
per course but less investment. It is a pedagogical However, in the first lab session it is mandatory
advantage if the lab workbenches are identical be- to do the wiring on the real breadboard.
cause the students can then perform the same ex- • In supervised lab sessions in distance learning
periments in each session and in the correct order courses where the students are scattered all over
required by the syllabus. On the other hand, it im- the country. Various communication methods
plies larger investments i.e. more duplicates of each are used to communicate between the students
instrument [9]. themselves and between the students and the
In electronics, it is possible to perform the same ex- instructor.
periment in different time scales by selecting the • Students can prepare supervised lab sessions and
electrical size of the components. This “feature” is perform the experiments at home knowing that
used in the online electronics laboratory at BTH con- the equipment in the traditional laboratory look
taining only one workbench to allow simultaneous the same and behave in the same way. They can
access by time sharing. A single workbench can re- also repeat experiments afterwards. Especially
place a whole laboratory with many workbenches. inexperienced or less confident students
The maximum duration of a single experiment i.e. requiring more time appreciate these
 possibilities. A student wanting, for example, to cess Sumaya University for Technology in Jordan,
master the oscilloscope can practice at home Carinthia University of Applied Sciences in Austria,
without anybody watching. Gunadarma University in Indonesia, UNINOVA
(Institute for the Development of New Technologies)
in Portugal, and ISEP (Instituto Superior de En-
genahria do Porto) in Portugal. The first two univer-
sities have already implemented 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 the 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 uni-
versities in cooperation and supported by instrument
Figure 2: Equipment Server
vendors. Sharing of laboratories may lead to sharing
of course material. The ultimate goal of our research
at BTH is ubiquitous physical experimental re-
sources, 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 as a means
of life-long learning.

4 A grid laboratory for electrical ex-

periments
Grid computing has emerged as a way to harness and
Figure 3: Screen dump showing the multi- take advantage of computing resources across geog-
meter raphies and organizations. Grid architecture for an
electronics laboratory similar to the BTH one has
So far the research has been focused on recreating as been published [16, 17]. In this grid-based laboratory
accurately as possible the laboratory experience for a measurement workflows execution service takes
the remotely based learner. Remote desktop software care of executing the measures according to the rules
and MS Messenger has been used for and sequence described in a measurement workflow
communication. More advanced communication repository. It invokes instrument services and man-
means will be adopted [14]. ages multi-user concurrent sessions on the same
physical test bench. The composition of measurement
workflows is in charge to teachers, who provide the
3 The VISIR project description of the measurement process in terms of,
for example, instruments activation process. Sharing
The aim of the VISIR project is to form a group of one lab workbench is the same approach as in the
cooperating universities and other organizations, a current online laboratory at BTH. On the other hand
VISIR Consortium, creating/modifying software knowing how to handle the measurement process is
modules for online laboratories using open source an important part of lab assignments. To display a
technologies and setting up online lab workbenches transient on the oscilloscope, for example, the oscil-
[15]. A number of such scattered lab workbenches loscope must first be armed and then the transient is
may be nodes in a grid laboratory. The VISIR Initia- started. Each student or student team in front of a
tive is not confined to electronics laboratories but the client computer should have a workbench at their
VISIR project has started with lab workbenches for own disposal for exclusive access as in the local
electrical experiments, since that is an easy and laboratory. Then the Perform Experiment button is
straightforward application to demonstrate the pow- no longer required.
erful concept. So far, the following universities are It should be possible to organize a grid laboratory
participating or are interested in participating in the distributed among universities around the world. The
project FH Campus Wien in Austria, University of workbenches should be the proper grid nodes.
Deusto in Spain, University of Genoa in Italy, Prin- Smaller nodes are not feasible because the instru-
ments and the circuit under test must be located close Spectrum analyzer, and Switch. Within each class a
together. The instruments and the circuit creation base capability group and multiple extension capabil-
manipulator would be device services accessible by ity groups are defined. Base capabilities are the func-
the lab clients via virtual front panels or a virtual tions of an instrument class that are common to most
breadboard, Fig. 4, 5. Web services prescribe XML- of the instruments available in the class. For an oscil-
based messages conveyed by Internet protocols such loscope, for example, this means edge triggering
as SOAP. However, real time performance requires only. Other triggering methods are defined as exten-
protocols without significant latencies and overhead. sion capabilities. For example, the functions sup-
For example, the oscilloscope display should be up- ported by the VISIR oscilloscope are listed in Table
dated at least every second. 1. The goal of the IVI Foundation is to support 95%
of the instruments in a particular class.

Table 1: The VISIR oscilloscope capabilities

Group Name Description

IviScopeBase Base Capabilities of the IviS-
cope specification. This group
includes the capability to ac-
quire waveforms using edge
triggering.
IviScopeWave- Extension: IviScope with the
formMeas
ability to calculate waveform
Figure 4: Oscilloscope service
measurements, such as rise
time or frequency.
Lab client computer Grid node IviScopeTrigger Extension: IviScope with the
Modifier
ability to modify the behavior
Internet of the triggering subsystem in
the absence of a expected
trigger.
Manipulator
Lab client
Control
IviScopeAuto- Extension: IviScope with the
routine Setup
routine automatic configuration abil-
ity.
It is not necessary to use IVI drivers but to enable
interchangeability between grid nodes VISIR rec-
ommends functions and attributes defined by the IVI
Virtual Breadboard Relay Switching Matrix Foundation to be used to describe the capabilities of
Figure 4: Wiring service the lab hardware. In this way it should be possible to
create a standardized approach which is easy to
It is possible to combine a virtual front panel repre- adopt.
senting a particular instrument from one manufac-
turer with the corresponding hardware from another
as long as the performance of the hardware matches 5 Conclusions and future work
that of the depicted instrument. The VISIR client
software package is modular and it is recommended BTH is disseminating software for an online work-
that every university creates virtual front panels rep- bench comprising the same equipment as a work-
resenting the instruments they have in their local bench in a traditional instructional electronics labora-
laboratories to preserve the student’s context. tory. Two universities have already implemented
such workbenches using the VISIR software. A
Instrument I/O is a well-studied domain with estab- number of students can perform experiments on each
lished industrial standards. Most commercial prod- of these online workbenches simultaneously by time
ucts follow the Virtual Instrument System Architec- sharing. However, each remote student or student
ture (VISA) or the Interchangeable Virtual Instru- team should have a workbench at their own disposal
ment (IVI) standards [18]. The IVI foundation cre- to be able to control each step of the measurement
ates instrument class specifications. There are cur- process. A way to reach this ideal situation would be
rently eight classes, defined as DC power supply, increasing the number of online workbenches and
Digital multi-meter (DMM), Function generator, organize them in a grid. Further research seems to be
Oscilloscope, Power meter, RF signal generator, required to get real time performance comparable
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