Search

Online laboratories offer cost-effective and easy-to-access experimental services in which experimental equipment has been put online and experimentation can be conducted remotely by end users, thus, they provide an important tool for industrial electronics disciplines. This article explores web analytics and visualization on a web-based online laboratory platform based on access data. Web analytics is an important feature of web systems that can track users' actions and interactions with the system and help to understand the user and the system performance. Given the provided data, a model is proposed to evaluate the web-based system along different dimensions. The results of one-year access data regarding different dimensions of the model are visualized and presented based on the Networked Control System Laboratory (NCSLab), which is a web-based 3-D platform that has been providing experimental services for over 15 years. The proposed model is also applied to the NCSLab for evaluation, which can provide insights for other web-based online platforms.

This article contributes to the realization of a unified and flexible framework that can cover whole processes of a control system for learner-centered learning scenarios. It introduces the application of a pocket laboratory with a unified and flexible framework to engineering education at Wuhan University. The pocket laboratory, named Mathematics to Practice Laboratory (M2PLab), is successfully designed and implemented for experimental courses. Different from conventional pocket laboratories, the M2PLab system has advantages, such as web-based plug-in free access, graphical algorithm design, simulation, code generation, and monitor integration just to name a few. Considering the hardware cost, size, and computing performance, the M2PLab system is deployed into the hardware of Raspberry Pi. Due to the small size of Raspberry Pi, the pocket laboratory can be carried into student dormitories or somewhere else to conduct experiments at any time. In this article, a pocket laboratory package including a Raspberry Pi, a compact test rig and cables is assigned to each student to finish experiments of Automatic Control Theory course. After the experiments, students were asked to fill out a satisfaction survey about the experience of the use of the pocket laboratory. Students' feedback verifies the effectiveness of the pocket laboratory.

With the development of mobile technologies, mobile applications are increasingly designed and developed. In the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, the idea of using mobile devices for teaching and learning has gradually gained popularity and gained in-depth research. Owing to the advantages of convenience, portability, and excellent interactive abilities, mobile devices are a good choice for accessing remote laboratories. In propose of promoting the massive online experimentation of control education, a mobile application with framework based on react-native is implemented in this article. The overall remote laboratory architecture adopts front-end and back-end separation scheme, which benefits the mobile application focusing on the construction of front-end interface and user experience. Various functional modules and technologies are applied in the mobile application, allowing users to access various experiment test rigs in the remote laboratory with intuitive experimental immersion. Moreover, a complete laboratory management system to manage the massive users from different universities has also been integrated into the mobile application. At the end, a remote networked control experiment has been conducted to prove the practicability of the mobile application.

This article introduces an Internet of Things (IoT)-based solution to a multiagent system (MAS) experimentation with high space utilization and high flexibility. The solution has been applied in the Networked Control System Laboratory (NCSLab), which provides hundreds of educational equipment instances, offering abundant choices for MAS experiments. Based on the networked control theory and integrated circuit technology, a novel compact architecture for online laboratories is proposed first. Combined with multiple features of NCSLab, such as online algorithm design, parameter tuning, and live video monitor, researchers can conduct interactive verification. To achieve good dynamic performance and coordinated performance in a communication-constrained network, a predictive state feedback controller for MAS is proposed. Three web-based leader–follower MAS experiments are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller and powerful configurable ability for the MAS in NCSLab. The proposed IoT-based compact laboratory provides a cost-effective and space-efficient solution for other remote laboratories.

With the rapid development of cyber-physical microgrids (MGs) and distributed generations (DGs), the distributed secondary control scheme becomes a key component of the MGs' control framework. However, the introduction of communication networks inevitably brings about time delays. Against this backdrop, this article proposes a distributed networked predictive control (DNPC) strategy for DC MGs suffering from time-varying communication delays. The proposed strategy can regulate the DG's voltage to the desired value and optimize each DG's generation cost simultaneously. Explicitly, the multistep predictor generates predictions for both local nodes and neighbor DGs, using the pseudo-prediction-enabled method. Thus, the delayed information in control protocols can be replaced by the latest predictions, so as to realize the active compensation for delays. Furthermore, the analysis of the stability of the closed-loop MG system is presented to ensure the generality of the DNPC strategy. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed control system against the time-varying delay effect is verified by comprehensive experiments in a DC MG containing a wind turbine generator.

Power systems are a crucial infrastructure to ensure a sustainable supply of electricity and are thus important for industrial, commercial and domestic consumption. As an interactive and visualizing enabling technology, the digital twin can be effectively applied to the training and education of students and operators in power systems. This article discusses a web-based communication system of power systems (CSPS) constructed with digital twin technologies, and provides a digital replica of the communication system and process as well as the remote monitoring and control of the physical system, the detailed design and implementation of which are presented. The functionalities and uses of the digital twin CSPS are also provided. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed digital twin CSPS, a case study with optical fiber line fault detection that emulates a real scenario is conducted, which includes remote control-based digital twin interactions and visualization.