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Designing and developing web-enabled remote laboratories for pedagogical purposes is not an easy task. Often, developers (generally, educators who know the subjects they teach but lack of the technical and programming skills required to build Internet-based educational applications) end up discarding the idea of exploring these new teaching and learning experiences mainly due to the technical issues that must be mastered. To tackle this problem, authors present a novel technique that allows developers to create remote labs in a quick, didactical, and straightforward way. This framework is based on the use of two well-known software tools in the scope of engineering education, Easy Java Simulations and LabVIEW. The development exploits a new feature of Easy Java Simulations known as EJS-elements that enables Java developers to create and integrate their own authoring libraries (elements) into EJS, thus increasing its application possibilities. Particularly, the EJS element here presented allows to LabVIEW programs be controlled from EJS applications through a communication network. This paper presents the element creation details and how this can be used to create web-enabled experimentation environments for educational purposes. A step by step example of development of a remote lab for automatic control education is described.

The use of mobile robots for teaching automatic control is becoming more popular in engineering curricula. Currently, many robot simulators with high-graphical capabilities can be easily used by instructors to teach control engineering. However, the use of real robots is not as straightforward as simulations. There are many hardware and software details that must be considered before applying control. This paper presents the development of an easy-to-use platform for teaching control of mobile robots. The laboratory has been carefully designed to conceal all technical issues, such as communications or the localization that do not address the fundamental concepts of control engineering. To this end, a position sensor based on computer vision has been developed to provide the positions of the robots on the platform in real time. The Khepera IV robot has been selected for this platform because of its flexibility and advanced built-in sensors but the laboratory could be easily adapted for similar robots. The platform offers the opportunity to perform laboratory practices to test many different control strategies within a real experimental multi-agent environment. A methodology for using the platform in the lab is also provided.INDEX TERMS Robotics education, mobile robot laboratory, vision-based indoor positioning sensor.

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