LabVIEW powered remote lab

The goal of this paper is to present the main features of the Programmable Logic Systems and Technology laboratory implemented in the Politehnica University Timisoara, Romania. Remote learning in electronics is a demanding task; our purpose was to perform remote hardware experiments and in the same time to keep the real life feeling for each of them. In order to fulfill this goal, we combined some LabVIEW features with NI hardware and a web camera. Webcam stream servers and Linux Apache web servers were used as well and at last we came out with a platform where students can perform both simple and complex electronics experiments over a simple web browser. Several experiments are currently running and the web camera can be used to monitor the behavior of the motors, the status of the LEDs and even an overview of the boards. A detailed description of each experiment is supplied in the paper. All common browsers and operating systems are supported by our application. This laboratory makes e-learning more exciting, while the student is directly involved in all the experiments.