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Engineering End-to-End Remote Labs using IoT-based Retrofitting

K. S. Viswanadh, Akshit Gureja, Nagesh Walchatwar, Rishabh Agrawal, Shiven Sinha, Sachin Chaudhari, Karthik Vaidhyanathan, Venkatesh Choppella, Prabhakar Bhimalapuram, Harikumar Kandath, Aftab Hussain

TL;DR

The paper presents RLabs, an end-to-end IoT-based remote-lab platform designed to address affordability, portability, scalability, and compatibility gaps in education. It showcases two retrofitted experiments—Vanishing Rod and Focal Length—alongside modular miniaturised variants to enable portable, scalable remote experiments. A novel software architecture with an interoperability layer and P2P WebRTC streaming facilitates multi-device access, while an automated CV-based testing suite ensures reliability with minimal manual intervention. Qualitative evaluation across seven NFAs and a user survey (n=45) report positive outcomes in usability and perceived learning, with uptime around 84% over four months. The work demonstrates practical, low-cost remote-lab deployment and sets a foundation for broader adoption and extension across disciplines.

Abstract

Remote labs are a groundbreaking development in the education industry, providing students with access to laboratory education anytime, anywhere. However, most remote labs are costly and difficult to scale, especially in developing countries. With this as a motivation, this paper proposes a new remote labs (RLabs) solution that includes two use case experiments: Vanishing Rod and Focal Length. The hardware experiments are built at a low-cost by retrofitting Internet of Things (IoT) components. They are also made portable by designing miniaturised and modular setups. The software architecture designed as part of the solution seamlessly supports the scalability of the experiments, offering compatibility with a wide range of hardware devices and IoT platforms. Additionally, it can live-stream remote experiments without needing dedicated server space for the stream. The software architecture also includes an automation suite that periodically checks the status of the experiments using computer vision (CV). RLabs is qualitatively evaluated against seven non-functional attributes - affordability, portability, scalability, compatibility, maintainability, usability, and universality. Finally, user feedback was collected from a group of students, and the scores indicate a positive response to the students' learning and the platform's usability.

Engineering End-to-End Remote Labs using IoT-based Retrofitting

TL;DR

The paper presents RLabs, an end-to-end IoT-based remote-lab platform designed to address affordability, portability, scalability, and compatibility gaps in education. It showcases two retrofitted experiments—Vanishing Rod and Focal Length—alongside modular miniaturised variants to enable portable, scalable remote experiments. A novel software architecture with an interoperability layer and P2P WebRTC streaming facilitates multi-device access, while an automated CV-based testing suite ensures reliability with minimal manual intervention. Qualitative evaluation across seven NFAs and a user survey (n=45) report positive outcomes in usability and perceived learning, with uptime around 84% over four months. The work demonstrates practical, low-cost remote-lab deployment and sets a foundation for broader adoption and extension across disciplines.

Abstract

Remote labs are a groundbreaking development in the education industry, providing students with access to laboratory education anytime, anywhere. However, most remote labs are costly and difficult to scale, especially in developing countries. With this as a motivation, this paper proposes a new remote labs (RLabs) solution that includes two use case experiments: Vanishing Rod and Focal Length. The hardware experiments are built at a low-cost by retrofitting Internet of Things (IoT) components. They are also made portable by designing miniaturised and modular setups. The software architecture designed as part of the solution seamlessly supports the scalability of the experiments, offering compatibility with a wide range of hardware devices and IoT platforms. Additionally, it can live-stream remote experiments without needing dedicated server space for the stream. The software architecture also includes an automation suite that periodically checks the status of the experiments using computer vision (CV). RLabs is qualitatively evaluated against seven non-functional attributes - affordability, portability, scalability, compatibility, maintainability, usability, and universality. Finally, user feedback was collected from a group of students, and the scores indicate a positive response to the students' learning and the platform's usability.
Paper Structure (49 sections, 20 figures, 7 tables)

This paper contains 49 sections, 20 figures, 7 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Motivation
  3. Overview of Remote Labs
  4. Related Work
  5. Attributes of Remote Labs
  6. Contributions of the Paper
  7. Structure of the Paper
  8. Use case Experiments
  9. Experiment 1: The Vanishing Rod Experiment
  10. Aim:
  11. Theory:
  12. Methodology:
  13. Results:
  14. Experiment 2: Focal Length Experiment
  15. Aim:
  16. ...and 34 more sections

Figures (20)

  • Figure 1: Overview of an IoT-based remote lab
  • Figure 2: (a) Ray diagram of light entering different surfaces. (b) Visibility of glass rods when dipped in beakers containing water and oil separately
  • Figure 3: (a) Ray diagram of a thin biconvex lens. (b) Experimental setup of the Focal Length experiment (source: hirophysics.com)
  • Figure 4: Hardware description of the lab-scale Vanishing Rod experiment. (a) Front-view of the experimental setup. (b) Back-view of the experimental setup. (c) Circuit diagram of the setup
  • Figure 5: Side-view of the experimental setup for Focal Length experiment
  • ...and 15 more figures