Distance laboratory for teaching electrical characteristics measurement and Maximum Power Point tracking of a Photovoltaic module

Distance laboratories using internet have been becoming increasingly popular tools in the education sector. This paper deals with basic philosophy and structure of a distance laboratory for experimentation in electrical engineering. It investigates the learning methodology of conducting experiments through internet based remote controlled laboratory for electrical characteristics measurement and Maximum Power Point (MPP) tracking of a Photovoltaic (PV) module. LabVIEW software interface has been used to control and acquire data from the experimental setup and Matlab/Simulink has been used to obtain results through simulation. The learning objectives that are achieved have been presented. This distance laboratory has been developed as a part of PEMCWebLab project.