Using network enabled microcontrollers in experiments for a distributed remote laboratory

Remote access laboratories are being used by universities to provide access to experiments through web based online environments. Usually, such experiments setups are an extension of the real hardware used in on-site laboratories. For a maker oriented RAL, users are encouraged to build their own experiment setups based on their understanding of the concepts and share them with their peers. Such a RAL system is targeted towards school level experiments. This poses a new problem of compiling equipment from an improvised set of tools, typically available at home or in schools. This is very different from the sophisticated laboratory equipment used in universities. In this paper, characteristics of such a RAL system are discussed and commercially available microcontroller boards to implement them are compared. Methods to operate these rigs based on a messaging protocol and an analysis of their performance in communicating with the network are presented.