Proceedings of 2015 3rd International Conference on Advances in Electrical Engineering

17-19 December, 2015, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Implementation of Remote Laboratory for

Engineering Education in the field of Power
Electronics and Telecommunications
Emranul Haque1,Feroz Ahmed2,Saurav Das3 and Khosru M. Salim4
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Independent University, Bangladesh
Dhaka, Bangladesh
1
emran1612@gmail.com,2fahmed@iub.edu.bd,3saurav.iubian@gmail.com and 4khosru@iub.edu.bd

Abstract— This study focuses on the implementation of web
based low cost yet effective remote laboratory system for
engineering education to utilize limited resources for improving
engineering student’s practical knowledge as well as self
learning ability. The proposed system provides practical
experience to the students in the field of power electronics and
telecommunications. This lab allows the students to perform
experiment by controlling various experimental apparatus on
real time from their home or any preferred location using the
internet connection. Several experiments related to Power
electronics and Telecommunications have been designed for this
remote lab. The system is flexible and the range of laboratory
experiments can be expanded as required without any
complexity. This initializes an openly integrated environment
which facilitates the sharing of not only hardware resources, but
also educational material for enhancing engineering education
in developing countries like Bangladesh.
Index Terms— Pulse width modulation; Duty cycle; Virtual
instrument; G-server; Remote Laboratory; Modulation
Techniques; DAQ.
I. INTRODUCTION
Due to rapid growth of internet and software technologies,
simulation based laboratories have been presented to the
engineering field. As these simulation labs are incapable of
providing practical experience, remote laboratories have been
introduced which are based on controlling and operating real
apparatus in real time and have the capabilities to provide
practical experience to the students. The importance of
remote laboratories has been discussed and presented in many
journals [1-5].
A number of individual remote laboratories have been
implemented in many universities around the world for power
electronics and Telecommunications education. Although
these remote lab systems seem less expensive compare to the
iLab of MIT, the British Open University, the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology, NetLab of the University of South
Australia [2-5]. But it is still highly expensive for developing
countries. For power electronics, these systems have used
expensive PWM signal generator, programmable DC power
supply, fully assemble readymade or semi readymade
experimental modules [6-8]. In order to control various input
source an external module NI ELVIS which is quite
expensive is used. For acquiring data, expensive data
acquisition devices (DAQ) have been deployed. However,
these systems do not have ability to change various
parameters during experiment such as duty cycle. As a result,
users are unable to change different parameter during
experiment. User has to stop the experiment to change the
parameters. For Telecommunications, again these systems
have used Emona DATEx board with NI ELVIS [9] for
acquiring and visualizing data. With addition of such an
external instrument the overall cost of the remote lab system
increases significantly.
Our proposed remote laboratory system is cost effective
and is in integrated form, providing both Power electronics
and Telecommunication related experiments. The system is
low cost and aimed to provide students a real lab like
environment where they are able to operate real instrument.
This remote lab provides an opportunity for students to
perform their experiment individually, understand what they
are doing and relate the theoretical knowledge with practical
experience. For Power electronics remote laboratory we have
designed the entire experimental module by our self. These
modules include different dc-dc converter and dc to ac
inverter. These modules have been deployed in remote lab for
various power electronics based experiments. For generating
PWM signals with variable duty cycle, low cost PIC
microcontroller has been used. General DC power supply
coupled with servo motor is used to control and generate
variable input voltages for power electronics modules. For
Telecommunications remote lab, we have selected Emona
101 trainer board which has the same capability as Emona
DateEX and we do not need an external module like NI
ELVIS. In order to acquire and visualize data for both
laboratories, we have not used any kind of expensive analog
data acquisition cards or external module. Instead we have
utilized our laboratory resources such as digital oscilloscope
and microcontroller to acquire and visualize data. Our
oscilloscopes have higher sampling rate and fast response
time yet less expensive than those external modules or DAQ.
Moreover, our designed remote laboratory systems have the
ability to change various parameters on the fly, so students do
not need to stop the experiments to change the parameters.
LabVIEW [10] along with MATLAB [11] are selected as
programming environment to design application interface of
the remote laboratory system.
II. ARCHITECTURE OF THE REMOTE LAB
Our developed remote laboratory system is based on
client/server architecture where all the experimental modules
are connected on the server side through application interface.
The general architecture of the remote laboratory system is

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 Proceedings of 2015 3rd International Conference on Advances in Electrical Engineering
17-19 December, 2015, Dhaka, Bangladesh

shown in figure 1. The whole system is divided into three

parts:
1) Authentication server: This server contains all the
necessary information of students such as ID, valid password
and booked time slot. When the verification is done
successfully it connects the clients to the application interface (a) (b)
for conducting experiments.
Fig 2. Data (a) FM and (b) PWM signal generation with variable duty cycle
2) Application interface: All the experimental hardware experiment received from the email
or module connected to it through controlling and acquiring
module. Application interface helps the client to control, IV. POWER ELECTRONICS LAB SETUP
change different parameters of the experiments on real time In this section, dc-dc power converter buck and boost are
through graphical user interface. It also contains a HD web given as an example for power electronics remote lab
camera so that clients can see the physical hardware and its experiment. The experimental setup is shown in figure 3.
response on real time on the web browser.

Fig 1. General architecture of the remote lab Fig 3. Experimental setup for Power Electronics Lab

3) Controlling and acquisition module: This module A. Buck Converter

contains the necessary hardware to control and acquire the As stated earlier we designed the main dc-dc buck
data through application interface by the client. This module converter by using our available resources. In order to drive
includes low cost servos, relay matrix switch for connecting the MOSFET of the converter we used low cost
different points, microcontroller (MCU) and digital microcontroller to generate pulse width modulated (PWM)
oscilloscope (OSC). signal. The detail specifications of the converter are given in
the table 1.
III. OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLE OF THE REMOTE LAB
TABLE I
Authorized students who booked time slot before and have SPECIFICATION OF THE CONVERTERS
valid ID and password can access the lab server through web
browser using internet connection to perform the experiment. Converter Type Buck Boost
We adopt time division approach as our experimental module Input DC voltage 3v-15v 2v-5v
cannot allow parallel simultaneous connection for different
Switching frequency 20 KHz 20 KHz
users. A link is provided to the students to perform the
experiment. When a student goes to the link a login window Duty cycle 25%-75% 25%-75%
will be prompt for username and password. After login Filter Capacitor 200uF 200uF
successfully a student sends a request to the G-server. The
server processes the request and hand over the control to the Filter inductance 1mH 5mH
student. On the client computer side, LabVIEW runtime Load resistance 10 ohm 100 ohm
engine which is a free web browser plug-in must be installed
in order to control and view the VIs properly. After gaining
the control students can perform the experiment and observe We designed and published the dc-dc buck converter for
the result by changing different parameters from the front remote experiment. After login, the following panel will be
panel of the VI. Students can view the system by pressing the shown on the browser for dc-dc buck converter experiment as
‘camera view’ button. When a student finishes experiment shown in figure 4(a).
he/she should save the acquired data by pressing the ‘Save
data’ button and enter email address in the ‘email address’
box to get the acquired data by email. These buttons are
found on the front panel. Data including graph will be sent in
MS Excel format as shown in figure 2(a,b). Finally, at the
end of allotted time student must release the control of the VI
and log off.

(a)

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 Proceedings of 2015 3rd International Conference on Advances in Electrical Engineering
17-19 December, 2015, Dhaka, Bangladesh
(b)
Fig 4: Front panel for (a) buck (b) boost converter experiment
From the front panel students can change different
parameters and observe different numerical and graphical
data as shown in figure 5(a,b).
(a)
(b)
Fig 5. Data analysis for (a) buck (b) boost converter experiment
Some of these parameters are described below:
• Variable input dc voltage: Students can change dc
input voltage from 3 volt to 15 volt with this
option.
• Variable duty cycle: duty cycle can be changed from
this option.
• PWM signal: From the observe tab student can
visualize the generated PWM signal on the
waveform graph.
• DC output: output voltage can be visualized with
this option. This is important as student can see the
output dc voltage has spikes on it as shown in figure
5(a). This spike occurs due to high speed switching
of the MOSFET and improper filtering. This helps
the students about practical situation which they
cannot observe through simulation.
• Peak to peak inductor voltage: The voltage across
the inductor can be seen with this option.
215
• Peak to peak PWM voltage: Generated PWM signal
voltage can be measured with this option
• Data acquisition: From this tab students can acquire
the experimental data and save it to database along
with their id.
• Email: The saved data can be received by email
from this option.
B. Boost Converter
We designed and published the dc-dc boost converter for
remote experiment. After login, the following panel will be
shown on the browser for dc-dc boost converter experiment
as shown in figure 4(b). From the front panel students can
change different parameters and observe different data as
described earlier. Specification and analysis part of the boost
is shown in table 1 and figure 5(b).
V. TELECOMMUNICATION LAB SETUP
In this section, Amplitude Modulation and Frequency
Modulation are given as an example for telecommunication
remote lab experiment. The experimental setup is shown in
figure 6.
Fig 6. Experimental setup for Telecom Lab
A. Amplitude Modulation
After login the following panel will be shown on the
browser for AM experiment as shown in figure 7(a).
(a) (b)
Fig 7. (a) Front panel for AM experiment. (b) Data acquisition for AM
experiment
For AM experiment some of the parameters are same as
mentioned earlier. A new parameter which is included for
AM experiment is given below:
• Connect different point: Students can connect
various points according to the experiment by
simply turn on/off different buttons. These buttons
send the signal the microcontroller and
microcontroller drive the relay to make connection
at different point. The data acquisition tab is shown
in figure 7(b).
 Proceedings of 2015 3rd International Conference on Advances in Electrical Engineering
17-19 December, 2015, Dhaka, Bangladesh
B. Frequency Modulation manual properly. Students did find remote lab as an effective
We designed and published the FM for remote experiment. way for their study (Q8).
Students can observe and change parameter as stated earlier.
The front panel and data acquisition tab is shown in figure
8(a,b).
(a) (b)
Fig 8. (a) Front panel for FM experiment (b) Data acquisition for FM
experiment.
VI. SAFETY AND OTHER ISSUES
All kinds of safety and other issues are taken care of
properly. If any kind of error or exception occurs then the
server takes over the control and reset the experimental setup.
For example if a student leaves in the middle of the
experiment then the server detects this and terminates the
program. Besides with server panel manager we can monitor
who is currently performing the experiment and who is
waiting and also the overall traffic. We can also disconnect
student if any kind of emergency arises. In addition, a student
cannot get more than allotted time to perform the experiment.
If a student does not log out within the allotted time then the
server will automatically disconnect the student and hand
over the control to the other students waiting for the
experiment.
VII. FEEDBACK
In order to study the feasibility and usefulness of the
laboratory a group of 20 students have been asked to perform
experiment using remote laboratory. Proper manual and
instruction was also provided to the students. This survey was
necessary to verify whether there is any problem or not and
also overall evolution from the students. The following
questions have been asked to students for the survey.
Q1. Was the remote lab easy to use?
Q2. How was the instruction manual provided with remote
lab?
Q3. How was the user interface?
Q4.What is your opinion about perspectives of Remote lab
in Bangladesh?
Q5. Is the remote lab an effective way of teaching?
Q6. Did you find any difficulties during experiment?
Q7. Was the allotted time for experiment enough for you?
Q8. Is the remote lab effective for you in studying practical
engineering courses?
Q9. Give an overall evaluation about remote lab.
From the figure 9 we can see it reflects a positive sign
about remote lab from the students. We can see that allotted
time was not enough for the students (Q7).Two students did
find difficulties during experiment (Q6). When we asked
them about the problem we found that they did not read the
216
Fig 9 Students survey result
VIII. CONCLUSION
The model of a cost effective and feasible remote
laboratory for power electronics and telecommunications was
presented in this paper. Remote laboratories may not be a
substitute of traditional laboratory system. It is an add-on
with traditional lab system by which we can utilize and share
our limited recourses with each of the students. This can open
opportunities to enhance class room lectures, create
cooperation among other educational institution in sharing
equipment or lab facilities and extend the learning process in
the developing countries like Bangladesh.
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