Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation Using Jini Technology

Abstract

The rise of Internet and web technology have transformed our society by providing access to unprecedented amount of information, supporting communication and collaboration, empowering e-business and e-commerce. Its role in advancing science is equally important. It has become possible to disseminate scientific information more effectively, access large databases, share computational resources, measurement devices, control experiments and collaborate at a global scale. The human user centered traditional world wide web technology, however, cannot provide the suitable technological platform necessary for the further development and improvement of online and remote engineering applications. New, service-oriented technologies are required, which support higher level of automation, enable seamless programmatic and interactive access to remote devices and systems, and have an adequate programming model suitable for creating large and complex distributed scientific applications. In this paper, we describe such a technology, Jini technology, and illustrate with case studies its various benefits for the remote engineering, virtual instrumentation community.