Development and application of remote laboratory for embedded systems design

Parkhomenko, Anzhelika; Gladkova, Olga; Ivanov, Eugene; Sokolyanskii, Aleksandr; Kurson, Sergey

doi:10.1109/rev.2015.7087265

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…A set of remote labs are currently available providing real experimentation with Arduino over the Internet. Some of these systems [36]- [38] focus on allowing a single simultaneous access to the lab. This, however, cannot be used by the teacher during classes, because several simultaneous accesses are expected.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These laboratories, while still being a good alternative for providing physical decoupling, are not extremely cost-efficient, because the laboratory hardware to user relationship is one to one. From an architectural point of view, laboratories [36]- [38] present a centralized distribution focused solely on the specific experiment itself, while laboratories [39]- [41] have been designed on a distributed architecture focused on cost reduction to favor scalability. This work proposes an architecture focused on scalability that allows the deployment of the desired number of instances of experimentation at a low cost, in order to provide simultaneous access to large student numbers and not hinder the experimentation capability.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this work, two of the previously mentioned state of the art remote laboratories and its architectures [37], [38] have been thoroughly analyzed with the aim of creating comparative data. These laboratories and its architectures are representative of the main trends in microcontroller-based and embedded systems remote laboratories.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improving the Scalability and Replicability of Embedded Systems Remote Laboratories Through a Cost-Effective Architecture

et al. 2019

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Online remote laboratories are a particularly promising tool for effective STEM education. They offer online universal access to different hardware devices in which students can experiment and can test and improve their knowledge. However, most of them have two significant limitations. First, given that most of them are developed as, or evolve from single-user proofs of concept, they have no scalability provisions other than full laboratory replication. And second, when this is done, cost efficiency is often neglected. This paper presents the requirements for the creation of a novel remote laboratory architecture focused on, but not limited to, embedded systems experimentation. An architecture, based on Redis (an open source, in-memory data structure store, which is often used as database, cache or message broker), a modular design, and hardware-sharing techniques, is proposed in order to achieve the combined requirements of high scalability and cost efficiency. This mixed hardware-software architecture serves as a basis for the development of remote laboratories, especially those focused on microcontroller-based systems experimentation and embedded devices experimentation. From a user perspective the architecture is webbased, and has provisions to be easily adaptable to different Learning Management Systems and different hardware embedded devices. A new microcontroller-oriented remote laboratory based on the architecture has been developed, with the aim of providing valid evaluation data, and has been used in a real environment. The architecture and the resulting remote laboratory have been compared with other state of the art remote laboratories and their architectures. Results suggest that the proposed architecture does indeed meet the main requirements, which are scalability through replicability and cost efficiency. Furthermore, similarly to previous architectures, it promotes usability, universal access, modularity and reliability. INDEX TERMS Remote laboratory, scalability, embedded system, online experimentation, architecture. JAVIER GARCÍA-ZUBÍA (M'08-SM'11) received the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of Deusto, Spain. He is currently a Full Professor with the Faculty of Engineering, University of Deusto. He is the Leader of the WebLab-Deusto Research Group. His research interests include remote laboratory design, implementation, and evaluation. DIEGO LÓPEZ-DE-IPIÑA received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge, in 2002. Responsible for several modules in the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in computer engineering, he is interested in pervasive computing, the IoT, semantic service middleware, open linked data, and social data mining. He is currently an Associate Professor and a Principal Researcher with the MORElab Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Deusto. He is taking and has taken part in several big consortium-based research European (EDI, GreenSoul, WeLive, SIM-PATICO, IES CITIES, or GOLAB) and Spanish projects, and has more than

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improving the Scalability and Replicability of Embedded Systems Remote Laboratories Through a Cost-Effective Architecture

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“…We should also be aware that the software and hardware development flows may proceed in parallel, depending on a design (e.g. in [3]). The reconfiguration allows developers and maintenance staff not only to remotely update firmware, but also to change the functionality of the system [4].…”

Section: Related Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid Embedded Systems Prototyping - an effective approach to embedded systems development

Brzoza-Woch

Gurdek

Szydło

2018

Annals of Computer Science and Information Systems

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In this paper we introduce the Rapid Embedded Systems Prototyping (RESP) approach aimed at accelerating the development of novel, experimental, and proof-of-concept implementations of embedded devices based on microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chips. It is intended to be used in the fast-paced business environment in which an early working prototype is required. The RESP approach can be useful for remote developing and temporary monitoring of various embedded devices: primarily for resource-constrained IoT platforms, microcontroller-based sensor nodes, and customized ad hoc systems. The RESP-compliant system uses a central server and one or multiple Remote Reconfiguration and Monitoring (RRM) modules. Each RRM allows the software developers to manage reprogramming and monitoring of multiple target embedded devices. It can be applied to a device that needs to be remotely reconfigured, tested, or reprogrammed in its target environment without implementing a reliable bootloader. The RRM described in this paper has been successfully implemented and its functionality and performance have been tested.

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“…They are mostly used at universities for educational purposes [10], as they provide unlimited access to the experiment at all times, granting students with the possibility of autonomous work and learning, whilst preventing damages to the equipment and reducing the strain on laboratory occupation time.…”

Section: Remote Laboratoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A remote monitoring and control system for ecosystem replication experiments

Ventura

Cruz

Lima

2016

OCEANS 2016 MTS/IEEE Monterey

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ResumoO estudo de ecossistemas naturais é uma tarefa complicada, principalmente devido aos seus custos elevados e logística complexa. Assim, de forma a contornar essas dificuldades, diversos investigadores têm vindo a realizar experiências num sistema fechado, de forma a replicar os ecossistemas em condições controladas e facilmente replicadas e repetidas. De forma a replicar os ecossistemas mencionados, tem-se assistido ao uso de aparelhos electrónicos, tais como sensores e actuadores, de forma a controlar os parâmetros ambientais, ao mesmo tempo que é feita a monitorização do seu impacto.Devido à globalização, que facilita a inclusão de membros de todo o mundo em equipas de investigação, existe uma crescente necessidade de controlar e monitorizar os aparelhos utilizados para a replicação das experiências de forma remota.Actualmente, os investigadores do CIBIO têm vindo a desenvolver o seu próprio sistema para replicação de ecossistemas, que faz uso de um microcontrolador, capaz de supervisionar os sensores e actuadores utilizados. No entanto, este sistema é controlado localmente, o que obriga à presença física e portanto, de forma a possibilitar este requisito, é apresentado nesta dissertação o desenvolvimento de um sistema para controlo e monitorização remotos para múltiplas experiên-cias, independentes entre si. Primeiro são apresentados os principais conceitos que servem de base à arquitetura do sistema, de seguida, o design final da arquitectura e, por fim, a sua implementação.A arquitetura de sistema proposta está dividida em três camadas, sendo que a de base é composta pelos modulos de sensorização e atuação já existentes, que irão comunicar, através de um protocolo de comunicação sem fios, com um coordenador, pertencente à camada intermédia, que serve como elo de ligação ao Sistema de Gestão de Base de Dados e à Interface do sistema, que se situam na camada final e cujo acesso é feito através da Internet.De forma a implementar esta arquitetura, é usado o Protocolo IEEE 802.15.4 para Comunicações Sem Fios, uma BeagleBone Black como coordenador do hardware associado às experiên-cias, que é composto por um Arduino Mega, do Sistema de Gestão de Base de Dados PostgreSQL e uma Interface para o Sistema, construída com recurso a PHP e HTML.Por fim, a praticabilidade do sistema é analisada e confirmada, sendo esta feita com recurso a vários testes onde a Interface do Sistema é utilizada para controlar os aparelhos responsáveis pelas experiências. A observação dos resultados obtidos através dos testes é encorajadora, uma vez que o funcionamento do sistema como um todo é validado, no entanto, existe ainda margem para melhorias no mesmo.i ii AbstractThe study of natural ecosystems is a hard task, due to its costs. and logistical complexity. So, in order to deal with these difficulties, researchers have been using enclosed experiments, in order to replicate ecosystems in controlled and repeatable conditions. To replicate said ecosystems, researchers have been employing the use of electronic devices, such as sensors,...

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Development and application of remote laboratory for embedded systems design

Cited by 10 publications

References 3 publications

Improving the Scalability and Replicability of Embedded Systems Remote Laboratories Through a Cost-Effective Architecture

Improving the Scalability and Replicability of Embedded Systems Remote Laboratories Through a Cost-Effective Architecture

Rapid Embedded Systems Prototyping - an effective approach to embedded systems development

A remote monitoring and control system for ecosystem replication experiments

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