Components relationship analysis in distributed remote laboratory apparatus with data clustering

Remote Laboratories are network controlled systems operated by human users through the internet for educational purposes. A distributed version of the remote laboratory requires the experimental rigs to be designed by individuals thus making it difficult to obtain formal models of the experimental rigs. A rig consists of a micro-controller unit with multiple ports to connect sensors and actuators. This paper proposes a timed automaton based model of experimental rigs that can be common to all sites. Further, the relationship of components of a rig is analyzed based upon this automaton. The components can be grouped into multiple sets where each set has two properties - the bond between each component in the rig and how frequently they are accessed. A method to obtain the component sets and to determine these two characteristics using data clustering is described.