Development of Remotely Accessible Matlab/Simulink Based Electrical Drive Experiments

This paper describes the development of remotely accessible electrical drive sets for hands-on education in electrical machinery, electrical drive and control courses as well as certain aspects of motion control and power electronics. The remote access is provided via the developed client-server communication method using the TCP/IP protocol to run the Matlab/Simulink compatible electrical drive sets operating on the remote server side. The developed method allows access to the robotics and electrical drive test- beds, namely permanent magnet DC (PMDC), permanent magnet synchronous (PMSM), and induction motor (IM) motor-load sets, developed for both on-site and remote use at the Control Laboratory in the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). The client-server communication is developed in C/C++ using wxWidgets to communicate with the Matlab/Simulink downloadable DS1104, which is the control unit used in all the electrical drive systems in the lab. The UAF remote laboratory web site can be accessed at: http://www.uaf.edu/ece/remote-lab.This paper describes the development of remotely accessible electrical drive sets for hands-on education in electrical machinery, electrical drive and control courses as well as certain aspects of motion control and power electronics. The remote access is provided via the developed client-server communication method using the TCP/IP protocol to run the Matlab/Simulink compatible electrical drive sets operating on the remote server side. The developed method allows access to the robotics and electrical drive test- beds, namele permanent magnet DC (PMDC), permanent magnet synchronous (PMSM), and induction motor (IM) motor-load sets, developed for both on-site and remote use at the Control Laboratory in the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). The client-server communication is developed in C/C++ using wxWidgets to communicate with the Matlab/Simulink downloadable DS1104, which is the control unit used in all the electrical drive systems- in the lab. The UAF remote laboratory web site can be accessed at: http://www.uaf.edu/ece/remote-lab.