Aligning Technic with Didactic – A Remote Laboratory Infrastructure for Study, Teaching and Research

2022

Digitalized laboratories are gaining importance in the higher education sec tor. Students are being provided with remote access to physical laboratory infrastructures as well as online access to virtual labs. Due to the complexity of systems in digital laboratory environments, it is often difficult to manage the applications efficiently. Moreover, there can be multiple types of labora tories with different system configurations. These laboratories need different management solutions based on the heterogeneity of lab systems. Therefore, different approaches are needed to create deployable software units which support multiple architectures.We compare a microservices approach and monolithic architectures. As regards production deployment, virtualization and containerization along with their benefits and disadvantages are considered. In our research, we compared Docker solutions as well as the main Kubernetes tools like Mini kube, Kubeadm, K3S, and Microk8s. Our goal is to identify solutions that are easy to manage even in heterogeneous hardware environments. Security, high availability, and compatibility with digitalized laboratories are also considered.

Section: Discussion and Sample Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Service-Oriented System Management Solutions in Remote and Virtual Laboratory Environments

Kharade¹,

Adineh²,

2022

“…The RFID laboratory at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences (HFT Stuttgart) has been used as the first laboratory test-case to be imple mented via LabMS. Interacting with industrial robots, operating the RFID measurement chamber, identifying security and safety challenges, as well as providing a media didactically designed user-friendly web-based user inter face (as described in Pfeiffer et al (2022)) were the main requirements for the technical concept.…”

Section: Case Study: Remote Rfid Lab At Hftmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enabling Remote Laboratories with LabMS – Fundamental Considerations and Proof of Concept

Adineh¹,

Jaekel²,

2022

In recent years, new resource-sharing concepts have been developed and im plemented, for example, in applications such as car sharing or office space sharing. Sharing large research infrastructures such as particle accelerators is also common. The operation of laboratories for educational purposes is an example of how we can benefit from implementing the concept of sharing knowledge, infrastructure, and facilities in the educational field. However, a corresponding networked IT infrastructure is needed to enable the sharing of laboratories between different institutions.The joint project DigiLab4U is developing, testing, and evaluating a digitally trans-formed laboratory environment that enables cross-site networ king of real and virtual laboratory facilities.Multiple services and applications have been designed, developed, im plemented, and deployed for the DigiLab4U project. One of the main com ponents, the Laboratory Management System (LabMS) application, provides an integrated platform to manage remote experiments. Mainly, it interacts with laboratory instruments via IIoT integration protocols and provides web-based user interface for remote users. It can be run in standalone mode, or by interacting with the DigiLab4U infrastructure and services.This paper focuses on DigiLab4U LabMS architecture, its Application Programming Interface (API) and functionalities, as well as security and safety concerns in digitalized remote laboratories.

“…Furthermore, implementing Laboratory Management System (LabMS) libraries from DigiLab4U will enable the development of an integrated platform to manage remote experiments by interacting with instruments using IIoT protocols for device communication. By providing a web-based user interface, as has been done for RFID Labs (Pfeiffer et al, 2022), the DigiLab4U infrastructure and underlying services can be accessed by users.…”

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digitalization of an Indoor-Positioning Lab Using a Mobile Robot and IIoT Integration

Behbahani¹,

Adineh²,

et al. 2022

Industry 4.0, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) as well as Smart Lo gistics depend on locating mobile assets. In contrast to outdoor locating, GPS is not reliable for indoor positioning. Instead, different real-time loca ting systems (RTLS) are used in industries for indoor locating when there is no chance of obtaining GPS-satellite signals. Students in engineering disci plines should know about the chances offered by and the limits of RTLS, for example through corresponding lab experiments. However, measuring the accuracy of RTLS is a time-consuming task. Our goal is to provide a remote RTLS-accuracy measurement experiment by digitalizing and automating the whole process.This paper discusses adding remote experiment service to this lab, thus providing access to the lab infrastructure anytime and anywhere. A mobile robot was used to move an ultra-wideband (UWB) transponder and expo se it to the RTLS measurement infrastructure. By optimizing the routing algorithm of a mobile robot, the required accuracy and appropriate safety features were justified and the accuracy of the robot reached 2 cm. It also passed all the static and dynamic obstacles with acceptable safety thanks to inbuilt sensors. The remote operation was also done in an IoT environment by implementing the MQTT data transfer protocol. For remote users to be able to operate our RTLS system via MQTT, we developed a software program. When running this program, our DigiLab4U Laboratory Manage ment System (LabMS) is able to send commands to the RTLS system and receive positioning measurements of a mobile object (in our case RTLS tag) via MQTT messages. Thus, the real route and the measured route can be compared and the difference can be analyzed by students remotely.