Rapid Prototyping Modules for Remote Engineering Applications

Abstract

This contribution describes the concept and implementation for an integration of microcontroller and FPGA based Rapid Prototyping modules into a Remote Lab system. This implementation enables a Web-based access to electro-mechanical models. A student uploads a source file implementation to the Remote Lab server in order to test an implementation directly within a hardware environment. The Remote Lab server offers the interfaces to integrate specific project and hardware plug-ins. These plug-ins access a hardware specific software environment to automatically compile and program the resulting firmware. To stimulate this design, the Remote Lab server exchanges digital signals via a serial interface. To allow the student to compare architectures of different designs using the same hardware model, a specific controller (using the Remote Lab interface) can be selected. For this, an IP-based multiplexer provides the control connection between the respective controller and the hardware model. In our contribution we would like to give examples of such a complex design task and how the students can use different tools during several design steps.