Improving the Scalability and Replicability of Embedded Systems Remote Laboratories Through a Cost-Effective Architecture
Improving the Scalability and Replicability of Embedded Systems Remote Laboratories Through a Cost-Effective Architecture
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DOI：
10.1109/access.2019.2952321
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发表时间：
2019-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Lopez-de-Ipina, Diego
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Villar-Martinez, Aitor;Rodriguez-Gil, Luis;Lopez-de-Ipina, Diego
在线远程实验室是有效进行STEM教育的一个特别有前途的工具。它们提供对不同硬件设备的在线通用访问，学生可以在其中进行实验，并可以测试和提高他们的知识。然而，它们中的大多数都有两个明显的局限性。首先，考虑到它们中的大多数都是作为单用户概念验证开发的，或者是从单用户概念验证发展而来的，它们除了完全的实验室复制之外没有可扩展性规定。其次，在这样做的时候，成本效率往往被忽视。本文介绍了一种新型的远程实验室架构的创建重点，但不限于，嵌入式系统实验的要求。提出了一种基于Redis（一种开源的内存数据结构存储，通常用作数据库、缓存或消息代理）、模块化设计和硬件共享技术的体系结构，以实现高扩展性和成本效益的综合要求。这种混合的硬件-软件架构是远程实验室开发的基础，特别是那些专注于基于微处理器的系统实验和嵌入式设备实验的实验室。从用户的角度来看，该架构是基于网络的，并提供了易于适应不同的学习管理系统和不同的硬件嵌入式设备。基于该体系结构开发了一个面向微处理器的远程实验室，旨在提供有效的评估数据，并已在真实的环境中使用。的架构和由此产生的远程实验室进行了比较与其他国家的最先进的远程实验室和他们的架构。结果表明，所提出的架构确实满足主要要求，这是通过可复制性和成本效益的可扩展性。此外，与以前的架构类似，它促进了可用性、普遍访问、模块化和可靠性。
Online remote laboratories are a particularly promising tool for effective STEM education. They offer online universal access to different hardware devices in which students can experiment and can test and improve their knowledge. However, most of them have two significant limitations. First, given that most of them are developed as, or evolve from single-user proofs of concept, they have no scalability provisions other than full laboratory replication. And second, when this is done, cost efficiency is often neglected. This paper presents the requirements for the creation of a novel remote laboratory architecture focused on, but not limited to, embedded systems experimentation. An architecture, based on Redis (an open source, in-memory data structure store, which is often used as database, cache or message broker), a modular design, and hardware-sharing techniques, is proposed in order to achieve the combined requirements of high scalability and cost efficiency. This mixed hardware-software architecture serves as a basis for the development of remote laboratories, especially those focused on microcontroller-based systems experimentation and embedded devices experimentation. From a user perspective the architecture is web-based, and has provisions to be easily adaptable to different Learning Management Systems and different hardware embedded devices. A new microcontroller-oriented remote laboratory based on the architecture has been developed, with the aim of providing valid evaluation data, and has been used in a real environment. The architecture and the resulting remote laboratory have been compared with other state of the art remote laboratories and their architectures. Results suggest that the proposed architecture does indeed meet the main requirements, which are scalability through replicability and cost efficiency. Furthermore, similarly to previous architectures, it promotes usability, universal access, modularity and reliability.