Remote Laboratory Java Server Based on JACOB Project

Abstract

Remote laboratories play an important role in the educational process of engineers. This paper deals with the structure of remote laboratories. The principle of the proposed remote laboratory structure is based on the Java server application that communicates with Matlab through the COM technology for the data exchange under the Windows operating system. Java does not support COM directly so the results of the JACOB project are used and modified to cope with this problem. In laboratories for control engineering education a control algorithm usually runs on a PC with Matlab that really controls the real plant. This is the server side described in the paper in details. To demonstrate the possibilities of a remote control a Java client server application is also introduced. It covers communication and offers a user friendly interface for the control of a remote plant and visualization of measured data.