An Online Lab to Support a Master Program in Remote Engineering

Transcription

1 An Online Lab to Support a Master Program in Remote Engineering Diana Pop, Danilo G. Zutin, Michael E. Auer, Karsten Henke and Heinz-Dietrich Wuttke Diana.Pop@edu.fh-kaernten.ac.at, d.garbizutin@cuas.at, auer@cuas.at, karsten.henke@tu-ilmenau.de, heinzdietrich.wuttke@tu-ilmenau.de Abstract - Remote Engineering is one of the future directions for advanced teleworking/e-working environments not only in engineering and science (economics, informatics), but also in all other fields affecting society. In the last decade, considerable advances have been made regarding the design and development of remote and virtual laboratories, but it requires a lot of new specialists. As an attempt to improve the situation, several European universities started a joint Master Study Program in Remote Engineering (MARE) including in its curriculum a course of Rapid Prototyping of Digital Systems designed by the Ilmenau University of Technology in Germany. This course required an extensive use of laboratory equipment to carry out several exercises and therefore the implementation of an Online Lab turned out to be a good solution to ensure better learning outcomes. Basics, applications and experience in Remote Engineering Design and application of virtual and remote working environments Advanced teleworking solutions such as online labs Remote technologies for complex engineering tasks Use of hardware, software tools and simulators in networks New ways for SMEs to apply high-tech equipment The master study program gives the opportunity: To use equipment and software tools distributed in the Internet or intranet To organize, implement, serve and maintain remote solutions To participate actively in the labor process for people with special needs Index Terms - Web-based Education, Web-based design tools, Innovative Software and Hardware Systems for Education and Training, Remote Control via Internet. INTRODUCTION Active learning or working by means of online laboratories is especially valuable for distance working or education. Users in the workplace can access remote laboratories without having to travel. This flexibility is important for teleworking, education and lifelong learning. Using online laboratories has the potential of significantly reducing obstacles related of cost, time-inefficient use of facilities, inadequate technical support and limited access to laboratories. This kind of development leads to the seamless integration of work and learning (embedded learning). In spite of the well known benefits of online laboratories we observed a lack of specialists in this field and the number of needed specialists will dramatically increase in the coming years. Within an EU funded SOCRATES project universities from Austria, Germany, Ireland, Romania, and Slovenia developed a Joint European Master Programme in Remote Engineering (MARE project). This master study programme promotes: The students learn in a dual mode manner (each module is available in presence and an e-learning mode). All modules are part of the Open Courseware Initiative (OCW) of the MIT and are stored on a special CMS. The study programme is planned in this way, that it will run in the final stage parallel in four European universities and the student will get the awarded title Master of Science in Remote Engineering. The student has the possibility to spent one semester (3 modules) in one of the partner institutions of his home university. Until now the programme was accredited in four countries and is already implemented in one country (Austria) as a master study programme and also as a vocational master study programme. The inscribed students of all partner-universities participated also in two summerschools TARET (Training in Advanced Remote Technologies). This had already a great impact on the internationalisation of the study programme and for the further developement of groups of specialists in this area. THE COURSE OF RAPID PROTOTYPING OF DIGITAL SYSTEMS Within the curriculum offered by the Master Program in Remote Engineering is the course of Rapid Prototyping of Digital Systems developed by the Ilmenau University of Technology. Students attending this course learn different GOLC2-1

2 methods and tool concepts to create, implement and validate Digital Systems to solve complex design tasks. The goal is to introduce methods and technologies for a rapid prototyping of digital (embedded) control systems, especially the hardware oriented part of these systems. Students learn to handle modern CAD tools, logic simulation and logic synthesis using hardware description languages (e.g. VHDL), design hierarchy, and current generation field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology. With modern logic synthesis tools and large FPGAs, more advanced designs are needed to present challenging laboratory projects. This course was taught during the third semester of the master program and included a one day lecture where the basic theoretical concepts and first laboratory practices were introduced. The following lectures were carried out in a distance learning basis via the Moodle platform were concepts and assignments were given. The assignments mentioned were composed mainly of lab work where students had to perform some exercises with a prototyping board developed by the Ilmenau University of Technology in cooperation with the University of Cooperative Education Thuringia in Gera. This board is shown in Figure 1. graphically based design methods, The student can use block or schematic diagrams to input his design. integrated FSM editors. In case of sequential design tasks he can directly enter the derived automaton graph (or graphs of parallel automata) with the built in FSM editor. The editor itself generates VHDL code for the further design steps. Another use case of the Rapid Prototyping board is to identify the function of a given design (black box). The FPGA was programmed by the teacher - the student has no ability to reprogram the device. By manipulating the inputs of the design (e.g. to enter all the input sets of a truth table or special input test vectors), the student attempts to analyse the response (the output signals) in order to find out the function of the given design. During the whole course each student had at his/her disposal one prototyping system. As the course was taught in a distant basis the hardware had to be transported between the partner universities so that students being taught could use the equipment. This situation opened the possibility for collaboration in a project to develop an online laboratory with the already used prototyping board where students could carry out exactly the same experiments as in the hands-on version of the platform. This online lab was developed at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences and its details will be described in the next sessions. FIGURE 1 STAND ALONE RAPID PROTOTYPING BOARD Because of the special conceptual design of this board, students were able test all the taught topics of the given lectures, e.g. basics of Boolean algebra, combinational logic and simple sequential circuits. Furthermore, they can apply and compare different functional specification techniques (e.g. logical equation, truth table, schematic diagram) with the ability for both local and Web-based remote access. By using common design tools (e.g. MaxPlus+, QuartusII from Altera [11]), the student is able to specify his design via text based design methods, Here the student can enter his design by means of logical equations, truth tables or hardware description languages (AHDL, VHDL or Verilog). THE ONLINE LABORATORY The work presented in this paper is based on the development of a system for remote prototyping and testing of digital systems that allows users to remotely perform tests on real devices over the Internet, as well as to design digital systems with the Altera Max + PlusII development environment. The CPLD used is based on the Altera's MAX architecture and support in-system programmability (ISP), therefore it can be easily reconfigured in the field. MAX II CPLD family is based on a groundbreaking architecture that delivers the lowest power in any CPLD family [2]. The device is hosted by an evaluation board containing the interface for programming the CPLD and other peripherals like LEDs, push buttons, 7 segment displays, hexadecimal and on-off switches connected to I/O lines of the device (see Figure 1). The student, like in the hands-on laboratory, can program the device to interact with these peripherals and to test the functionalities and the real behavior of the programmed functions. For the implementation of the CPLD Online Lab LabVIEW, from National Instruments, was used on both server and client s side. The system has gone through several changes that added new functionalities. The very first version was implemented with a data acquisition card controlled to read and update the status of the I/O pins of the GOLC2-2

3 CPLD used for the peripherals. In this way the status of the switches, LEDs and 7-segment displays and provides the user interface of the laboratory were represented on the lab user interface as well as on the real board. Figure 2 shows the online laboratory hardware. screen-updates and keyboard controls are transmitted in a 128bit encrypted connection over the internet and the user has the feeling of being running the application locally in his/her machine [3]. The main purpose of the CITRIX Server is to provide remote lab exercises based on simulation software. Additionally it is also used for controlling real hardware equipment via the CITRIX environment. In order to access the application, the user needs to download the client delivered as a Java Applet, therefore only the Java Virtual Machine is necessary as prerequisite to use this resource. The communication between the Lab Server and the Microcontroller board was implemented via the USB bus. Figure 3 shows a simplified diagram of the Lab Server. FIGURE 2 THE ONLINE LAB RAPID PROTOTYPING BOARD The second version of this online laboratory was implemented as a plug and play remote solution. It optimizes the use of resources and decreases the implementation costs. In the new implemented solution the data acquisition device was replaced by a self developed communication board based on one PIC18F4550 microcontroller and two MCP23S17 Port Expanders from Microchip. The overall costs of the new solution were reduced by around 70%. To deliver the remote clients LabVIEW remote panel technology was used. LabView provides a built-in Web server that is used to publish the Web pages that contain the embedded interfaces (front panels). In order to allow Web browsers to run the remote panel a LabView run time engine is necessary. It contains a plug-in that enables the remote panel to work on the client s Web browser, while the virtual instrument actually runs on the server s side This online laboratory can be classified as a hybrid lab as it is a combination of a remote laboratory (real experiments) and a virtual laboratory (simulation) with the MAX+PLUS II development environment. As previously mentioned, MAX+PLUS II is used as the development environment to program and simulate the designed functionalities of the CPLD device. It offers a full spectrum of logic design capabilities: a variety of design entry methods for hierarchical design, powerful logic synthesis, timing-driven compilation, partitioning, functional and timing simulation, linked multi-device simulation, timing analysis, automatic error location and device programming and verification. MAX+PLUS II reads and writes Altera Hardware Description Language (AHDL) files and standard EDIF netlist files, Verilog HDL files, VHDL files, and OrCAD schematic files. In addition, this software reads Xilinx netlist files and writes Standard Delay Format (SDF) files for a convenient interface to other industrystandard CAE software [2]. In the implemented solution the MAX+PLUS II Software is delivered to remote users via a Citrix Presentation Server, which allows them to access the desired application that runs on the server. By a mouse clicks, FIGURE 3 LAB SERVER DIAGRAM The Microcontroller was set in such a way that it waits until it s detecting something from the USB and when it is receiving the information it starts to read and write the variables. For the implementation of the user interface it was used as background a picture of the real device to give the users the feeling that they are working with the real board even if they are not. The LabView controls and indicators were customized to look like the real controls of the prototyping board. Figure 4 shows the CPLD online lab user interface. All controls can be manipulated with the mouse interactively. GOLC2-3

4 FIGURE 4 USER INTERFACE OF THE CPLD ONLINE LAB During the development of this Lab Server only the lab specific tasks were taken into consideration. That means that functionalities related to user management, data storage and scheduling of lab session were used from the ilab Shared Architecture. The ilab Shared Architecture (ISA) is a web services based software framework that aims at providing access to online laboratories assuming that they share some characteristics. It distinguishes the tasks of using a specific lab that comprises an experiment from the tasks of managing users accounts, user authentication and other tasks that follow a lab session. This clear separation of roles is one of the main advantages of the ilab Shared Architecture. ISA does not focus in a specific type of laboratory but provides a set of general purpose functions for lab developers. ISA is divided into three tiers that provide different services. These tiers are client, Service Broker and lab server. The Service Broker is the core of the architecture and provides user authentication, authorization, experiment data storage and access to scheduling services. The lab clients and lab servers are lab domain specific [22]. ASSESSMENT OF THE CPLD ONLINE LABORATORY In order to have a students' evaluation of our remote solution for this laboratory, a short survey was carried out. It included several multiple choice questions, answered by students from the second year of the Remote Engineering Master Program of CUAS. The pilot testing of the laboratory was performed with regular students of the remote engineering specialization at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences. For all students, this was their first experience in working with a remote laboratory. An important fact was that all students who participated in the survey experienced both remote and hands-on versions of the laboratory during their Digital System Design lecture, in the last semester of the master program. The objective of the survey was to find out if the remote laboratory can totally replace the local one and if the students of the CUAS have a positive approach on this solution. In order to achieve this statistical evaluation, different types of questions were used, such as: open, matrix, and grading questions. The open questions offered the possibility to personally express the students' opinion about the given question. The matrix question gave the student the possibility to assess certain aspects, according to his/her feelings related to a specific question. The gradient question was used as the last question to see the global satisfaction level when using the online solution of the CPLD Laboratory. Within this question, the students had to score the laboratory according to his/her opinion. Figure 5 shows that the answers for the question: Have you ever worked with the real CPLD Board developed by the Technical University of Ilmenau?, 89% of the students answered "yes", while only 11% of the students have never worked with this solution. FIGURE 5 USE OF THE LOCAL SOLUTION As it can be seen in Figure 6, at the question Do you have at home all the necessary equipment for the execution of the CPLD Remote Experiment? 78% of the people answered yes and 22% answered no. Further talks with the 22% of the students who answered NO at this question made us realize that the question had not been carefully read, and they had understood that it was referenced to the local experiment. For the local experiment, the students would need a serial communication connector at home. FIGURE 6 NECESSARY EQUIPMENT FOR THE ONLINE EXPERIMENT GOLC2-4

5 Regarding the suitability of the CPLD Online Laboratory, at the question: Is the CPLD Online Lab more suitable than the local laboratory?, the opinions were different, 22% of the users answered with YES and NO, while 56% of the users could not decide. This clear separation of the users' answers of the users can be seen in Figure 7. disconnect from the Citrix Server after the end of the session, no user could connect to use the MAX+PLUS II software anymore. Nevertheless, the overall opinion of the students about the CPLD Online Laboratory was good because, as it can be seen in Figure 9, 67% of the users were satisfied with the online laboratory, and 33% were very satisfied. FIGURE 7 SUITABILITY OF THE CPLD ONLINE LABORATORY The question: Being far from the prototype, have you felt yourself to be in control? was asked based on the student s control feeling. The answer was positive, 89% of the students said that yes, while only 11% of them were not feeling themselves really sure and they answered no. As it can be seen in Figure 7, 78% of the students agreed that the CPLD Online Laboratory could totally replace the local experiment, while 11% could not decide or said that this would not be a good idea. FIGURE 8 REPLACING THE LOCAL EXPERIMENT WITH THE REMOTE LABORATORY At the question: While working with the CPLD Online Lab, have you learned more than if you performed the real experiment?, 56% of the students answered that they could not see any difference between the two solutions, while 22% of the students answered yes and 11% that not really or no. All the students agreed that the CPLD Online Laboratory has a friendly user interface, therefore at the question: Do you think the CPLD Online Laboratory has a friendly user interface? all the answers were yes. Due to the fact that our interest was to discover all the problems that can occur during the use of the online laboratory, the following question was asked: Have you had problems using the MAX+PLUS II Software Online?. This question was set as open question to give the students the freedom to express themselves. The answers helped to better future implementations with the MAX+PLUS II Software. Even if some of the students had no problems using the software online, others had some such as: if they did not FIGURE 9 STUDENT IMPRESSION ABOUT THE CPLD ONLINE LABORATORY CONCLUSION Within several new European Master Degree Programs in the area of Remote Engineering (e.g. [21]) it is increasingly necessary to allow and organize a shared use of equipment. That s why the main focus is a Web-wide usage of design tools and remote-labs for the design of Digital Systems. Using both, online tool support and laboratories, has the potential of removing the obstacles of cost, time-inefficient use of facilities, inadequate technical support and limited access to design and laboratory resources. This would also benefit students and researchers with special needs and students/researchers working from home, so they do not have the need to travel to their companies facilities to perform their work. Even students/researchers working at their university s facilities can use remote specialized equipment at another university without travelling. Students will learn more about the possibilities and limits of remote control and observation via Internet by practical examples. Use of online experiments in online engineering learning environments enhances the learning activities. In engineering education, the experimental part (and not only simulation) should be increased. What students need is a plan for testing the experiment under various conditions. Because of having to repeat experiments, laboratory time under traditional labs is often limited. However, students can work in remote labs 24 hours a day and seven days a week, so the opportunity to gain access is greater than in local labs. The prerequisites students need for this are only a Web browser and an access slot, which they can obtain from brokerage software. By working in a distributed lab environment, students can also use experiments developed at other universities, which users may not be able to not find in their home universities. However, one important problem arises in the online mode. Up to now, the influence of the user on the experiment set up is restricted. In a local GOLC2-5

6 situation, experimenters must design the experiment according to a given plan or develop their own. In online situations, the experiments and simulations are usually predefined and the variability is limited. This means, with respect to learning, that the experimenter s meta-cognition in this type of situation is not as well trained and more special knowledge and skills are required. REFERENCES [1] D.V. Pop, M. E. Auer, D. G. Zutin: Remote Design and Test of Digital Systems with the Altera MAX CPLD,,REV 2010 Conference, Stockholm, Sweden. [2] [3] MAX+PLUS II Guide, [4] Advanced PIC microcontroller projects in C: from USB to RTOS with the PIC18F Series By Dogan Ibrahim, 2008 [5] M.E. Auer, I. Grout, K. Henke, R. Safaric and D. Ursutiu: "A Joint Master Program in Remote Engineering", International Journal of Online Engineering (ijoe) [Online], Vol. 2, No. 2, 30 Apr (2006) [6] S. Sire, F. Geoffroy and D. Gillet: A Virtual Assistant for Sending Hints and Perturbations to Students based on an Electronic Laboratory Journal (ejournal), Proceedings of the ITHET 03, Marrakech, Morocco, July 7-9, [7] K. Henke and H.-D. Wuttke: Web-based educational tool access, IASTED International Conference Computers and Advanced Technoly in Education CATE 2003, Rhodes, Greece, 30 June-2 July, [8] H.-D. Wuttke and K. Henke: Living Pictures tool-oriented learning modules and laboratory for teaching digital via internet, Proceedings of the ICEE-2002 International Conference on Engineering Education UMIST, Manchester, Great Britain, August 18-22, [9] T. Braune: Rapid Prototyping components for Remote Engineering Applications (in German), Master Thesis, Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany, [10] J.O. Hamblen and M.D. Furman: Rapid Prototyping of Digital Systems, Kluwer Academic Publishers, [11] K. Henke, H.-D. Wuttke and S. Hellbach: Laboratory via Internet new ways in education and research, Int. Journal of Computers and Applications, vol. 25, ACTA press, [12] Altera Corp., Homepage: [13] REAL: Remote Engineering and Applications Laboratory, [14] Y. Torroja, et al.: A Modular Environment for Learning Digital Control Applications, Microelectronics Education, Marcombo, S.A, [15] T. A. Fjeldly, J. O. Strandman, R. Berntzen and M. S. Shur: Advanced Solutions for Laboratory Experiments over the Internet, Engineering Education and Research-2001, Begell House Publishing. [16] H.-D. Wuttke, K. Henke and N. Ludwig: "Remote Labs versus Virtual Labs for Teaching Digital System Design", Proceedings of the Int. Conf. On Computer Systems and Technologies CompSysTech 05, Varna, [17] H.-D. Wuttke, R. Ubar, K. Henke and A. Jutman: Assessment of Student s Design Results in E-Learning-Scenarios, 8th Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET2007), Kumamoto City, Japan, July, [18] Microchip Corp., Homepage: [19] K. Henke and H.-D. Wuttke: "A Mixed-Reality Environment for Digital Control Systems", International Conference on Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation, REV2005, Brasov, Romania, 29 June-1 July, [20] K. Henke, H.-D. Wuttke and T. Braune: Virtual and Remote Labs in the Educational Process, International Conference on Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation, REV2007, Porto, Portugal, June, [21] M.E. Auer, I. Grout, K. Henke, R. Safaric, and D. Ursutiu, A joint master program in remote engineering, International Journal of Online Engineering (ijoe), Vol. 2, No. 3, from: [22] V. J. Harward, J. A. del Alamo, S. R. Lerman P. H. Bailey, J. Carpenter, et. al., "The ilab Shared Architecture: A Web Services Infrastructure to Build Communities of Internet Accessible Laboratories," Proceedings of the IEEE, vol.96, no.6, pp , June GOLC2-6