A New Node in the VISIR Community

Mohamed Tawfik, Elio Sancristobal, Sergio Martín, Charo Gil, Alberto Pesquera, Pablo Losada, Gabriel Díaz, Juan Peire, Manuel Castro

Electrical and Computer Engineering DepartmentSpanish University for Distance Education-UNED

REV2011- Remote Engineering & Virtual Instrumentation

Background

• VISIR is a remote laboratory for wiring and measurement of electric and electronic circuits on a bread board.

Background

• The Signal Processing Department ASB at Bleking Institute of Technology (BTH) in Sweden together with National Instruments in USA (as a supplier of instruments) and Axiom EduTECH in Sweden (as a supplier of education, technical software, and engineering services for noise and vibration analysis) have launched the Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR) Project by the end of 2006.

• The project was financially supported by BTH and the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA).

VISIR (Virtual Instrument Systems In Reality)

Traditional Electronic Laboratory

PXI Platform

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=

PXI Platform

Relay Switching Matrix

OSCI CH1

OSCI CH1

Components

DMM LOW

DMM HIGH

FGENA

DC Power Supply

Relay Switching Matrix

Commands

Relay Switching Matrix

A

0

B

COM

C

X1

D

X2

E

X3

F

X4

G

X5

H

X6

I

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Relay Switching Matrix

Relay Switching Matrix

Operation Cycle

Equipment server

Measurement server(Visual C++)

DatabaseMySQL

Web ServerApache

HTTPSHTTPXML

TCP/IP

HTTPXML

TCP/IP

HTTP

TCP/IP

Max Lists Component List

Equipment server softwareLabVIEW

WebPage(php and Flash)

PXI Platform + Relay switching matrix

User Interface

Interchangeable Virtual Instruments (IVI)

• VISIR recommends IVI standards (It is not necessary to use IVI drivers) to enable interchangeability between grid nodes. In this way it should be possible to create a standardized approach which is easy to adopt.

Virtual Workbench

Virtual workbench

Installation

Software1) Apache HTTP server.2) PHP.3) MySQL Database.4) Text_WIKI Package.5) Smarty.6) HTTPS Hardware

1) LabVIEW.2) NI Instruments Drivers.3) Microsoft Visual C++

Redistributable Package.

Installation tips for hardware and software are provided

Implementation

So far, 7 universities and institutes have already implemented a VISIR :

• Bleking Institute of Technology (BTH).• Carinthia University of Applied Sciences. • FH Campus Wien University of applied sciences.• Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP).• University of Deusto.• Spanish University for Distance Education (UNED).• Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M).

Implementation

International Association of Online Engineering • One important objective of the VISIR

project is to create a lab community consisting of all the participant universities and organizations. Consequently, it would be possible to create a grid laboratory where the nodes are online lab workbenches distributed among those universities. This would allow sharing lab recourses and sharing online workbenches.

• The IAOE have created the VISIR Special Interest Group (SIG VISIR)

VISIR-LXI• University of Deusto is developing a new LXI-

based VISIR system, in which all the instruments are replaced with IVI drivers instruments (instead of NI) and LXI complaint.

• The aim is to:1. Use standards devices, not proprietary

solutions2. reduce the cost of the PXI instruments.3. Use a commercial switching matrix and

not a proprietary one.4. increase the system flexibility. 5. permit the system integration into

WebLab-Deusto architecture, which would make it easily integrated to an LMS.

VISIR-iLab

• The System Engineering Department at Carinthia University of Applied Science together with BTH are working on the integration VISIR into ISA framework to provide users form iLabs Community the possibility of deploying and using VISIR in their ISA framework and to take the advantages of the services provided by ISA. This integration allows sharing of VISIR with a high load capacity in an efficient way.

VISIR-LMS

• The Electrical and computer engineering department at UNED is researching into the integration of the services provided by the VISIR interface with those provided by LMS. By this way, users could access to VISIR through the LMS with a single sign-on and every account type in the LMS (teacher, student, administrator, etc.) would have the same privileges of its equivalent account type in VISIR interface.

VISIR-LMS

• A module to add laboratories has already been created for Moodle.

• The next step is to communicate this module with VISIR by web services.

VISIR-LMS

• A module to add laboratories has already been created for Moodle.

• The next step is to communicate this module with VISIR by web services.

VISIR-LMS

• VISIR in Moodle (embedded in HTML)

Thanks For your attention

Mohamed Tawfik, Elio Sancristobal, Sergio Martín, Charo Gil, Alberto Pesquera, Pablo Losada, Gabriel Díaz, Juan Peire, Manuel Castro

Electrical and Computer Engineering DepartmentSpanish University for Distance Education-UNED

REV2011- Remote Engineering & Virtual Instrumentation