Browsing by Author "Costa, Ricardo J."
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- Adopting building automation in weblabsPublication . Costa, Ricardo J.; Alves, Gustavo R.; Santos, Domingos S.Several companies have been developing domotic Stds. for building automation, enabling users to locally and remotely control several home devices, like: lights, power sockets, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, among others. Besides contributing to improve the building comfort, these Stds. may also be adopted for other purposes, namely in weblabs used in sciences and engineering remote experiments. To increase the sense of immersion in weblabs, we identify domotic Stds. as a standard solution for turning on/off the power infrastructure and controlling the light and temperature conditions of the physical space where a specific experiment may run, thus approaching the sense of being in the lab facilities while accessing them through the corresponding weblab interface. After identifying the added value to weblabs in terms of power savings and in the control of the environmental conditions, we used our knowledge and the WWW to conduct an extensive search on domotic Stds., and after analysing the results obtained, we choose the most appropriated one to be implemented in a Weblab. Regarding the adopted Std., a proof-of-concept is also described, enabling the control of an halogen lamp and a power socket, using a specific Web interface.
- An educational kit to teach and learn Operational AmplifiersPublication . Costa, Ricardo J.; Portela, Paulo; Alves, Gustavo R.Operational Amplifiers are widely used for implementing simple and complex electronic circuits in electronic engineering. As a contribution to improve the way this integrated circuit is included in electronic engineering courses’ curricula, this paper presents a prototype of an educational kit comprising a simulation tool and a reconfigurable hardware platform with the OpAmp uA741. It enables the simulation and experimentation
- Collaborative learning in a qeb-accessible workbenchPublication . Ferreira, José M.; Alves, Gustavo R.; Costa, Ricardo J.; Hine, NickWeb-based course management and delivery is regarded by many institutions as a key factor in an increasingly competitive education and training world, but the systems currently available are largely unsatisfactory in terms of supporting collaborative work and access to practical science facilities. These limitations are less important in areas where “pen-and-paper” courseware is the mainstream, but become unacceptably restrictive when student assignments require real-time teamwork and access to laboratory equipment. This paper presents a web-accessible workbench for electronics design and test, which was developed in the scope of an European IST project entitled PEARL, with the aim of supporting two main features: full web access and collaborative learning facilities.
- A customizable platform for remotely teaching & learning LVDTsPublication . Costa, Ricardo J.; Fernandes, Samuel; Jorge, Joni; Alves, Gustavo R.In electrical engineering, sensing natural phenomena requires the use of transducers, such as the sensors named Linear Variable Differential Transformers (LVDTs). They are traditionally interfaced with computer devices through signal conditioning circuits to measure linear displacements with good linearity, sensitivity and precision. Their adoption in many industrial applications requires from engineering schools a particular attention to create the best conditions to teach and learn them, in particular by providing infrastructures to enable students the conduction of experimental activities. To overcome some of the difficulties faced by engineering schools (low budget, curricula time constraints, lack of infrastructures, among others), this paper presents a remotely accessible infrastructure comprising a customizable platform that enables the conduction of real LVDT experiments. Since the infrastructure is currently a prototype solution, some improvements are suggested, in particular the possibility of using some of the issues described in the IEEE1451.0 Std. that was originally published to design and interface smart transducers.
- A demo prototype of a reconfigurable IEEE1451.0-compliant and FPGA-based weblabPublication . Costa, Ricardo J.; Alves, Gustavo R.; Zenha-Rela, MárioA reconfigurable weblab prototype was designed according to the I E E E1451.0 Std. based on FPG As. A brief introduction about its architecture and underlying infrastructure is presented. After an overview about the main features of the weblab, namely the standard access and the reconfiguration capability, the proposed demonstration for the exhibition session is described.
- Embedding instruments & modules into an IEEE1451-FPGA-Based Weblab infrastructurePublication . Costa, Ricardo J.; Alves, Gustavo R.; Zenha-Rela, MárioAdopting standard-based weblab infrastructures can be an added value for spreading their influence and acceptance in education. This paper suggests a solution based on the IEEE1451.0 Std. and FPGA technology for creating reconfigurable weblab infrastructures using Instruments and Modules (I&Ms) described through standard Hardware Description Language (HDL) files. It describes a methodology for creating and binding I&Ms into an IEEE1451-module embedded in a FPGA-based board able to be remotely controlled/accessed using IEEE1451-HTTP commands. At the end, an example of a step-motor controller module bond to that IEEE1451-module is described.
- Experimenting the 1149.1 and 1149.4 test infrastructures in a Web-accessible remote Lab (without Plug-ins!)Publication . Fidalgo, André Vaz; Costa, Ricardo J.; Ferreira, J. M. Martins; Alves, Gustavo R.The expansion of the Internet has supported the development of online teaching resources based on this communication media (e-learning). However, the possibility to run experiments on remoteaccessible Labs, in a teaching context, is a more recent fact. This paper describes the framework for delivering through the Web, a course on Design for Debug and Test that contains several practical exercises involving the use of the IEEE 1149.1 and 1149.4 test infrastructures. The exercises are done in a remote-accessible Lab, installed at our facilities, through a simple interface readable on any web browser. By using a complete Java-based solution, there is no need for installing any sort of plug-ins at the client computer as it happens in other similar approaches that require some sort of downloading extra software or the development of Common Gateway Interfaces (CGIs).
- Experimenting through the web a linear variable differential transformerPublication . Costa, Ricardo J.; Alves, Gustavo R.Aiming for teaching/learning support in sciences and engineering areas, the Remote Experimentation concept (an E-learning subset) has grown in last years with the development of several infrastructures that enable doing practical experiments from anywhere and anytime, using a simple PC connected to the Internet. Nevertheless, given its valuable contribution to the teaching/learning process, the development of more infrastructures should continue, in order to make available more solutions able to improve courseware contents and motivate students for learning. The work presented in this paper contributes for that purpose, in the specific area of industrial automation. After a brief introduction to the Remote Experimentation concept, we describe a remote accessible lab infrastructure that enables users to conduct real experiments with an important and widely used transducer in industrial automation, named Linear Variable Differential Transformer.
- Extending the IEEE 1451.0 Std. to serve distributed weblab architecturesPublication . Costa, Ricardo J.; Alves, Gustavo R.; Zenha-Rela, Mário; Costa, Ricardo; Alves, Gustavo; Restivo, Teresa; Cardoso, Alberto; Alves, José C.The appliance of the IEEE1451.0 Std. into the remote experimentation domain may be an interesting solution not only to develop reconfigurable weblab infrastructures, but also to improve the way infrastructures, and their experiments, may be shared. Therefore, this paper proposes a distributed weblab architecture supported on a IEEE1451 concept named Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS). It is suggested the use of a new TEDS, named LabTEDS, to provide information about weblab infrastructures namely, web location, technical resources and type of experiments described according a metadata model specification defined by the Lab2go project. The access to the architecture is made through the IEEE1451.0 HTTP API extended with new functions. At the end of the paper a thin implementation of the architecture is presented, supported on a cross-mapping established between the HTTP functions and the low-level commands, which are used to control the weblabs.
- FPGA-based weblab infrastructures guidelines and a prototype implementation examplePublication . Costa, Ricardo J.; Alves, Gustavo R.; Zenha-Rela, Mário; Poley, R.; Wishart, C.Recent trends show an increasing number of weblabs, implemented at universities and schools, supporting practical training in technical courses and providing the ability to remotely conduct experiments. However, their implementation is typically based on individual architectures, unable of being reconfigured with different instruments/modules usually required by every experiment. In this paper, we discuss practical guidelines for implementing reconfigurable weblabs that support both local and remote control interfaces. The underlying infrastructure is based on reconfigurable, low-cost, FPGA-based boards supporting several peripherals that are used for the local interface. The remote interface is powered by a module capable of communicating with an Ethernet based network and that can either correspond to an internal core of the FPGA or an external device. These two approaches are discussed in the paper, followed by a practical implementation example.
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