Implementation of Laboratory At Distance (LAD): Specific considerations and recommendations Radhi MHIRI1, Mongi BESBES2, Maarouf SAAD1, Vahé NERGUIZIAN1 and Houda BEN ATTIA2

Electrical Engineering Department 1École de technologie supérieure

Montreal, Canada radhi.mhiri@etsmtl.ca

2Ecole supérieure de technologie et de l’informatique Tunis, Tunisia

Abstract— The laboratory of a course is considered as a fundamental part of the education and training for engineers and scientists. Remote laboratories are increasingly finding their way into a variety of disciplines. Development and operation of remote laboratory work are specific process in several dimensions (technological, pedagogical, organizational, etc.). We present in this article some typical characteristics of this process. We will limit ourselves to consider the specificities related to communication between the remote user and the laboratory equipment. We will consider also the problems related to planning and access control and we will highlight aspects related to safety and the initialization of the state of a bench for a new experiment starting at distance.

In the second part of this article we will discuss some challenges and opportunities that accompany the development of remote laboratories.

This paper does not pretend to be exhaustive, but is based on real experiences that the authors have lived through a collaborative project between ETS and three national colleges (CEGEP) for the development of Lab At Distance (LAD). Another project is developed using Lab@home approach as part of ‘Fonds de développement académique du réseau’ (FODAR) of University of Quebec. These experiments were realized in collaboration with national colleges in Quebec and also in collaboration with international universities in Tunisia and United Arab Emirates.

Index Terms— lab at distance, Lab@home, online laboratory, remote laboratory, pedagogical approach, Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

I. INTRODUCTION The remote laboratory is a concept that tends to spread into

science and engineering courses at different levels. Development of remote laboratory is introduced in different ways; an interesting example can be cited with the approach taken by MIT to develop the online iLab laboratory.

‘’The iLab Project is dedicated to the proposition that online laboratories - real laboratories accessed through the Internet - can enrich science and engineering education by greatly expanding the range of experiments that the students are exposed to in the course of their education’’ https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/ilab2/home.

From the perspective of online laboratory management, experiments in this project fall into three broad categories:

Batched experiments, Interactive experiments and Sensor experiments. For Sensor experiments, students get and note information from sensors. At École de technologie supérieure (ETS), we were interested in bringing new approaches for laboratory work in electrical engineering as per the second category or the Interactive experiments. The objective was the introduction to our students to perform remote laboratory work. This would correspond to the second mode of the iLab project. This action has led us to develop two major types of applications. The first type considered remote laboratory work using laboratory equipment installed in the laboratory and connection via the Internet [1]. The second type considered works that could be performed with miniaturized equipment and kit connected to Personal Computer (PC) where the work could be even done from home. This type of work is called Lab@home [2].

Through these experiences we treated a number of problems specific to the use of remote laboratory. We also caught a glimpse of innovative solutions and challenges that could greatly expand the use of remote laboratories and compensate the constraints of this mode type of laboratory. In what follows, we present some key points related to these problems and these ideas and challenges.

II. SPECIFIC CONSIDERATIONS

A. Communication The delicate issue that always comes up in remote

laboratory is the communication between laboratory server and users. Communications at this level must be viewed from two angles. We must consider the technical solutions available and the type of laboratory work we wish to develop.

Through our experience we explored communication through different software like Labview, LogMeIn, TeamViewer, Radmin, etc. The mode of communication must also be suited to the nature of work requested and the scenario we want to implement. In some works we ask the students to configure and control software to see the effect of the choice they have made. In this case, students will not need to program software but simply to run an already prepared solution and choose the parameters for this solution. Therefore, using Labview is a very interesting choice [3]. Labview is widely used in Educational Remote Laboratories

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thanks to the “Remote Panels”, where the developer publishes the application automatically in a web browser [4].

In other cases, the main work is to lead the students to develop their own programs or their own solutions. Hence, we will need to enable the student to take control of the programming software which is on the laboratory server. The recommended solution would be therefore the communication through software like LogMeIn or TeamViewer or Radmin that allows the students to take direct control of the server screen to use the programming software needed.

The choice of the communication solution must still take into account the expected scenario for the process of laboratory work. If, for example, we plan to put students in a collaborative mode, the solution must also allow the direct exchange between students remotely by text image and sound. All solutions considered already allow screen sharing between users, but not all of them allow direct communication between users.

Team Viewer solution seems to be among the best solution that meets these requirements with good performance.

We must also take into account the transmission of the video image that cannot give high resolution for too rapid movements. It is then desirable to choose experiments where moving parts and changing variables do not have too fast dynamics. Therefore, as examples, temperature or level control experiments are appropriate.

We tried to summarize in Table I the performance characteristics of the different software based on our experience.

TABLE I. PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF DIFFERENT SOFTWARE

L

abview

LogM

eIn

Radm

in

Team

View

er

Bridgit

Characteristics of the

required work

Processing or software

development + + + + +

Setup of an existing software (without the risk

of alteration server software)

++ + + + +

Rapid evolution process variables

++ + + +

+ +

Proposed scenario

Individual work

+ + + + +

Collaborative work with

synchronous exchanges

+ + + ++ +

In Table I, more + sign indicates a higher performance characteristic.

B. Planning and access control The second point relates to the mobilization of laboratory

equipment for each student. In a conventional mode, all students work at the same time on identical benches (figure 1). As seen on this figure each student has its own bench with the equipment.

Fig. 1. Conventional laboratory organization

In the case of the Laboratory At Distance (LAD) of figure 2, we are often in the configuration where all students must pass by turn on one available bench. The mobilization time of the equipment by a student is very critical. LAD requires pre-scheduling so that a user is granted exclusive access to the experiment This leads us to distinguish three stages in laboratory work. In addition to the LAD step in which the equipment is mobilized by a particular student, we will distinguish a stage of preparation called Pre-LAD and a step of analyzing the results which come after the LAD and called Post-LAD. These two steps (Pre and Post-LAD) have no time constraints and each student can achieve them freely at any convenient period of time [5-6]. Nevertheless, it is necessary to recall the importance of Pre-LAD for a successful execution of the work required for the LAD. This is also well confirmed by the studies in which a comparison is made between performances of a student group that has been well supported in the preparation stage with a group of students who were given complete freedom to do this preparation.

Fig. 2. LAD organization

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Control access to laboratory equipment is a priority in our project. This control should include three basic elements: authentication, the starting time of the connection and how long the student remains connected to the equipment. Multiple platforms and software already enable to ensure authentication effectively. For our purposes, the control of the connection time and duration of the connection are additional requirements needed.

These requirements led us to design and develop software to meet our specific needs.

We distinguish in this software three types of users: administrator, teacher and student. The following describes the main features of this software (figure 3):

Fig. 3. Booking and scheduling interface software

• The primary administrator assigns time periods to teachers so that they can then assign it for their students. For each lab, the teacher can decide how long to complete the assigned laboratory. The administrator can also be assigning time periods to groups as a teacher and book for each student.

• Each teacher may assign space-times to the groups for each laboratory. The teacher may also separate the groups into subgroups and assign time ranges independently. H/she can also make reservations for each student.

• Each student can make a reservation only to the laboratory where a time period has assigned to him/her.

• Once the time period reserved, the student will enter the website and access the lab with his/her username and his/her password. The booking site will verify the identity of the user and the schedule to see if the student does have a reservation.

• Once verification completed, the site will provide access to the lab page.

This software is very useful for access planning and it meets all our requirements when the connection is via Labview. However in the case of other software connection (LogMeIn, Radmin, etc.), limiting the connection time is not under our control to permit releasing the connection after the scheduled time consumed. Software is developed in a standard form and is adaptable for each institution.

C. Safety Safety is a constant concern in the case of the LAD.

Among the major concerns at the Web site is the following question: How to prevent unwanted access? This point can be treated in part by the internet security software to prevent the infiltration of viruses, but we must also prevent the access to users who are not enrolled in the system. Access should not be allowed even for those who are registered if they are not programmed or scheduled for the time period in which they connect. Safety also considers the situation of software malfunction. It should be always possible to detect these mal-functions and restart all the software from the beginning. The most difficult level of security concerns the operation of laboratory equipment itself. The status of all components of the equipment (motor, fan, heating elements etc...) should be analyzed in detail, then all possible failures of equipment should be considered to provide hardware and software protections. This will ensure the necessary equipment security and prevent accidents and any possible damages.

D. Reset to start The progress of LAD is usually done without the presence

of operators on the site. Then it should consider the procedure that would restart the system to its original state so that it can be used by the next student. Including among the reset operation is these other points:

• Initial positioning of certain elements of the laboratory bench (cart, robotic arms, etc.).

• Supply of certain modules of the laboratory bench (fluid supply, consumable supplies, etc.).

• Cooling of certain modules of the laboratory bench after strongly heated when used.

• Cleaning of parts on the laboratory bench. Some reset operations can be programmed and controlled

through the software developed while others require the addition of particular solution or additional devices to support the reset operation as is the case for example when all parts are at the end of an assembly chain and need to be transported to its beginning.

III. CHALLENGES AND AMBITIOUS PERSPECTIVES

A. Challenge 1: Learning without boundaries The use of LAD is accompanied by a restriction in

relation to the direct manipulation of real equipment but it has some openings of different dimensions through ICT. The use of this equipment is no longer restricted to the space lab where the equipment is located. Students can use it from home. The LAD may even be offered to students from

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another city or even another province nationally or internationally.

ICTs are breaking down geographical boundaries and we can even envisage the use of LAD between distant countries. This is a challenge that excites us greatly and we have already implemented tests with Ecole supérieure de technologie et d’informatique (ESTI) in Tunisia and have given good satisfaction. Tests are also being tried with Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi. The challenges are pushed further to see how LAD is organized in synchronous collaborative work between students from different countries.

An example of synchronous collaborative laboratory work with Tunisia is shown in figure 4.

Fig. 4. Synchronous collaborative work with Tunisia

The collaboration between ETS and ESTI has evolved in two directions. In Tunisia, a laboratory of this kind has been developed and tested remotely from Montreal.

This experience opens wide horizons for international collaboration and allows distant students to participate in a training program in engineering that require laboratory work.

Behind these questions arises the following question: How will evolve the performance and reliability of Internet communication? Could innovation in ICT, like Cloud-computing for example, provide in the near future a miracle solution by increasing the speed and stability of exchange?

B. Challenge 2: Bringing industry to the laboratory and the laboratory to the classroom The use of ICT in the LAD allows other very interesting

openings. Through the so called "industrial tour", the student is led through the LAD to find industrial applications in connection with the subject of the LAD http://elab.etsmtl.ca/ . This is yet another feature of the LAD that pushes learning beyond the narrow limits of the classical laboratory approach. Other practices also settled through the facilities offered by the LAD and the Lab@home [7]. Indeed, it becomes quite convenient to take advantage of this remote access and support to illustrate the theoretical course by a demonstration on real hardware. This option should gradually lead to a complete change in teaching methods in engineering.

C. Challenge 3: Monitor the student’s activities We can well develop all programs, design all media,

prepare all illustrations and do our best to provide a rich and

complete course, but the crucial question is: What are the activities that students do and what they learn from this? Instructors are heavily busy in developing new approaches, and realizing that all these pedagogical improvements are non-efficient without the consideration of students’ needs.

The question brings us to the importance of evaluation in its various forms and at all levels, but it also suggests the idea of following the path of the student in his exploration of training materials and activities that he was offered. These ideas have been treated in different ways, but not in the case of working LAD. It then became interesting to develop a computer application to track specific activities of a student. We considered a broader approach to permit tracking student activities between the different components of a learning program that includes lectures, application exercises and laboratory work.

The objective was to identify the preferences of any student who would be given the freedom of navigation between the three components of training to learning. The result should inform us about the learning style of the student and should also guide the teacher in selecting appropriate approaches and scenarios for each course module.

IV. CONCLUSION This paper is interested in developing LAD and recalled

specific problems that must be taken into consideration in any proposed LAD. The specificities of the communication are designed to continually evolve with new feats of ICTs. The security aspect remains paramount and should be treated with the utmost rigor. This article has also opened new horizons for the development and dissemination of the use of LAD Prospects for monitoring and mentoring students would enhance learning and effectiveness of LAD and guide the task of the teacher or instructor.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to acknowledge the support of

MESRST (Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche, de la Science et de la Technologie), of École de technologie supérieure, of Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel de Granby, Quebec, Canada, of Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel de Sorel Tracy, Quebec, Canada, of Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel de Valleyfield, Quebec, Canada, of Télé-université du Québec, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The authors thank, Mr. Michal M. Solecki and Mr. Hakim Tazi for their collaboration and the development software they provided for this project.

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