An Internet-based Control Engineering Laboratory for Undergraduate and Graduate Education

This paper describes the hardware configuration and software structure of an Internet-based control engineering laboratory. The laboratory provides a remote access to many experiment plants which all have distinguished features that render them worthwhile for experimentation for either control education or research. After logging on the laboratory to choose experiments to be conducted via the Internet, students can choose a predefined controller or they can design a new controller through the GUI in the client. During the experiment it is also permitted to change some typical controller parameters and the reference signal. Experimental results can be checked through on-line plots and a live video window shows the real running experiment.