Design and implementation of a service-oriented web-based control laboratory

This paper introduces the NCSLab (Networked Control System Laboratory) at http://www.ncslab.net, which provides a complete Web-based solution for users to carry out experiments on experiment devices located globally. A scalable and service-oriented architecture which is composed of Web browsers, central Web server, MATLAB servers, regional experiment servers, control units and experiment devices is proposed. Based on the architecture, many novel functionalities including visual algorithm designing, simulation, compilation, visual monitor configuration, real-time monitoring and supervisory control are designed and implemented by combination of state-of-the-art technologies such as Web2.0, J2EE and MATLAB. The service-oriented architecture designed and the functionalities provided distinguish NCSLab from other existing remote laboratory systems. An experiment example is given to demonstrate that users can enjoy all these rich interactive features with a simple Web browser from anywhere at any time.