Labview remote panels and Web services in solar energy experiment — A comparative evaluation

Supported by the proliferation of remote monitoring technologies, distance laboratory experiments have become a widely spread tool in the educational sector. This paper presents the implementation of a remotely accessible collection of solar energy programs for determining electrical characteristics and Maximum Power Point (MPP) tracking of a Photovoltaic (PV) module. Two remote communication technologies have been used for this purpose: the LabVIEW Web Services and the LabVIEW Remote Panels. However, since the proposed experiments include complex instrumentation control and monitoring, there are some factors which need to be considered when deciding which solution is more reliable. An evaluation of these approaches has been discussed with the purpose of emphasizing encountered advantages and disadvantages. In either case, the user will be able to benefit from accurate measurement results and to achieve the proposed learning objectives.