A remote laboratory for performing experiments with real electronic and communications equipment

Laboratories are an inherent aspect of technological know-how skills, as practical experiments are vital for pupils to receive the competencies and techniques that they will need to have throughout their long run experienced progress. Providing this studying in a virtual structure is one of the problems posed by the present-day COVID-19 pandemic—a obstacle that distance universities have been addressing for a long time. RLAB-UOC is a remote laboratory made and developed by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) that allows students in the Faculty of Laptop or computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications to perform practical experiments with authentic digital and communications equipment wherever, at any time. A new write-up revealed in the scientific journal Electronics has explained the properties of the laboratory, and analyzed the students’ satisfaction employing a sort of experiment that has taken position about the earlier six semesters.

“The major success demonstrate that the students’ thoughts are incredibly good, and that it is feasible to do distant experimentation with highly advanced and costly tools and units, like those in electronics and communications laboratories, in a 100% on the internet atmosphere, integrating the theory and practical classroom in the exact ecosystem. This enhances the learning experience and the students obtain the useful and professional techniques they need,” pointed out Carlos Monzo, a researcher in the Faculty of Pc Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications at the UOC, and the primary author of the review. Other scientists and members of faculty also took element in the investigate: Germán Cobo, David García, José Antonio Morán and Eugènia Santamaria.

Managing an digital circuit remotely

The case examine of the RLAB-UOC, which has been applied by hundreds of college students since its inception in 2012, was carried out for Electronic Electronics, an sophisticated study course on the Bachelor’s Degree in Telecommunications Technologies and Services Engineering (GETiST). In certain terms, it is primarily based on an experiment with a circuit managed by an FPGA, a programmable electronic system physically found at the UOC. Students can hook up from everywhere with an internet connection, making use of a control program to entry a real FPGA board and function remotely with the circuit, even though viewing the benefits of their function by using a webcam.

The college students subsequently answered a questionnaire to amount the perceived quality and usefulness of the remote laboratory and their opinion of the use of authentic devices compared to the simulations that are also used in other experiments all through the training course. The success of the study clearly show that learners rate the laboratory and working with genuine instruments ‘very positively’. They also imagine that it would be beneficial to prolong the use of this laboratory to other courses.

Creating this experience of becoming immersed in a authentic undertaking was one particular of the most important troubles in the progress of this engineering. “The examine displays a distinct illustration which provides the framework of a matter where concept and exercise exist side by aspect, and the students amount it quite positively. It was also pretty critical for us to stop the feeling from being comparable to performing with a simulation, which we accomplished with the design and style of the laboratory and the experiments carried out,” pressured the researcher.

A patented technological know-how

The progress of this remote laboratory has been accompanied by a patent to defend a technology for carrying out a sort of experiment mostly related to the design and assembly of analog electronics circuits in a absolutely online environment. “Its most important attributes are that it permits factors with two and 3 poles (resistors, capacitors, coils, transistors, and so on.) to be linked quickly and remotely, which offers pupils the overall flexibility to execute the assemblies they want virtually. The creation also enables the feasible experiments to be scaled, so that the method can be expanded,” said the researcher.

The forms of experiments that have been executed have progressed above time and they have been changed, up to date or developed to meet the students’ academic requirements. “The goal is to be equipped to provide the most advanced qualifications with experimental desires, using into account the completely remote mother nature of our scientific tests,” pointed out the researcher.

Residence laboratories

The UOC also offers other choices in get to tackle this will need to carry out realistic experiments: virtual simulations and residence labs. “When physical access to the gadgets is essential, the student is sent gear like Lab@Home. This is an additional UOC creation, in which the scholar can manipulate electronic products and parts in situ, and it has also been remarkably rated by learners, as we confirmed in one more new short article,” concluded Carlos Monzo.

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Universitat Oberta de Catalunya