Development of Mobile Interfaces to Interact with Automatic Control Experiments [Focus on Education]

As mobile devices begin to dominate the market and as laboratory equipment is increasingly connected to the Internet, there is an opportunity for laboratory instructors to recognize and respond to these changes by developing mobile apps for interacting with the equipment. Most reported incorporation of mobile devices thus far have been in virtual laboratories that use software to simulate experiments. Although such laboratories have the benefit of allowing students to learn from mistakes without damaging remote equipment, student learning can be limited by denying them access to real data from real equipment. The primary contribution of this article is to outline the development of several mobile apps for interacting with real physical test beds in an automatic control laboratory, both in the laboratory and remotely. Results are provided from a preliminary investigation of the usability and user experience associated with the applications, using students who would ultimately be the users of the applications when they are integrated into the curriculum. Implementation considerations such as the application development, wireless communication, hardware interfaces, and control are discussed. A microcontroller-based interface to the laboratory hardware provides a low-cost solution that can monitor, command, and control experiments via mobile devices.