Cross Platform Web Accessible Remote Experiment Architecture using NI PXI, LabVIEW Web Server and Javascript Libraries

Abstract

Remote Laboratories have become vital tools for education, research and industrial training, enabling experimentation beyond spatial and temporal constraints. The increasing need for flexible and accessible experimentation necessitates the development of robust remote laboratory architectures built using reliable proprietary hardware. This work presents such a remote laboratory architecture developed for two vibration experiments. The current work leverages a National Instruments PXI system alongside LabVIEW for experiment automation and web based control. The backend is built using the LabVIEW web server coupled with Google Javascript and AJAX libraries. This kind of design ensures platform-independent access via standard web browsers on laptops and mobile devices. Performance evaluation of the developed system demonstrated the system's efficiency and responsiveness. Upon receiving the user input via the browser based user interface, the experiment is triggered swiftly within 0.5 seconds. A ten-second graphical representation of acquired vibration data complete with precise acquisition timestamps is displayed on the client's browser, providing real-time feedback. This accelerated processing power is due to the integration of web server and controller in a single system. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.