A Remote Electronics Laboratory for Physical Experiments using Virtual Breadboards

Ingvar Gustavsson, Henrik Åkesson, Johan Zackrisson, Lars
Håkansson, Department of Signal Processing, School of Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology,
Sweden, Thomas Olsson, Department of Electroscience, Lund University, Sweden

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Confernece and Exposition
Copyright 2005, American Society for Engineering Education. Reprinted with the permission of ASEE



Abstract
In traditional university laboratories students conduct experiments under the supervision of an
instructor. A remotely-operated laboratory for undergraduate education in electrical engineering
which emulates a traditional laboratory has been set up by Blekinge Institute of Technology
(hereafter referred to as BTH), Ronneby, Sweden. The laboratory is a client/server application
and the Internet is used as the communication infrastructure. Most remote laboratories elsewhere
are used for fixed experiments but in the BTH laboratory students around the world can assemble
circuits simultaneously from electronic components in much the same way as they do in a
traditional laboratory. The teacher or a member of the laboratory staff mounts the components to
be used in the lab sessions in a circuit assembly robot in the experiment server in Ronneby.
Students use the mouse to connect some of the corresponding virtual components on a virtual
breadboard displayed on the client PC. Students thus control the robot by means of the wiring on
the virtual breadboard. Virtual instrument front panels are used to control and read the
instruments by means of remote control. To avoid potentially serious student mistakes e.g.
overloading a component the teacher can preset limits to the source voltages which are
accessible to students. The teacher can also restrict student circuits by, for example, dictating
minimum impedance in loops created with aid of the components provided. The number of
nodes provided on the virtual breadboard is adequate for experiments in undergraduate
education. The laboratory is always open and can be used by registered students and guest users
alike. The time-sharing scheme used allows simultaneous access for up to 8 client PCs. A 56
kbit/s modem and MS Internet Explorer are all that are required. The client software can be
downloaded from the laboratory web site at http://distanslabserver.its.bth.se/. This paper
discusses the remotely operated laboratory at BTH; it focuses on the virtual breadboard.

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