Using LabVIEW remote panel in remote laboratories: Advantages and disadvantages

LabVIEW is a development environment from National Instruments, focused on the automation of processing and measuring equipment, and it is and has been for years a crucial tool in Educational Remote Laboratories. Three features are key for this success: a) a visual programming language called G, so developers don´t need to work with traditional “text” programming languages, therefore achieving a wider range of experiment developers; b) a strong industrial support and c) the “Remote Panels”, where the developer publishes the application automatically in a web browser. However, Remote Panels require a plug-in to run, not available for mobile devices neither all browsers in operating systems, and it clearly breaks with the ongoing web development trends, more interested in HTML5. This contribution shows how LabVIEW Remote Panels are used in Remote Laboratories, describing its inclusion in the WebLab-Deusto platform, and it describes the advantages and disadvantages of its use, comparing it with other existing approaches.