Abstract:

New technologies have allowed the creation of online laboratories, which are differentiated of two types, virtual and remote laboratories. In the virtual labs virtual-simulated devices are used, and in the remote ones, real devices are employed. Currently, technology is allowing to put together both types of laboratories, which have many similarities. The advantage of virtual laboratory machines is that they do not require physical space, the cost is lower, and they are easily scalable. As for the remote laboratories, students can interact with real devices, analyse real results and delays, with all the complexity that comes with a real machine. The hybrid laboratory allows students to learn from the design phase, using the learned theory, to the experimentation phase with real devices. The hybrid laboratory is a combination of a virtual laboratory and remote laboratory devices. They include laboratories with real experimentation and simulation environments. These online hybrid laboratories provide real experiments transferred to the virtual laboratory, as well as simulated experiments transferred to the real laboratory. Therefore, in a hybrid laboratory, the student can combine physical and real resources with virtual simulations, taking advantage of one another.

This abstract describes a new approach of laboratories for industrial systems, based on hybrid laboratories. The hybrid labs proposed have physical control devices in the real part, and simulated components and processes in the virtual part. Through the combination and connection between both parts, it can take advantage provided by both real and virtual laboratory. The hardware and software architecture proposed for these hybrid laboratories is based on the Modbus communication protocol, a PLC (Programmed Logic Controller) and EjsS (Easy Java/JavaScript Simulations). This architecture allows to develop hybrid laboratories in the framework of industrial automation and control. Specifically, the designed hybrid laboratories refer to the interconnection of a real PLC (real part of the hybrid laboratory) and a simulated industrial plant (virtual part of the hybrid laboratory). The virtual simulation can provide data from virtual sensors to the PLC and modify the behavior of the virtual plant as a function of the PLC’s program. The interaction between real equipment and virtual processes provides a realistic scenario, allowing a deep understanding of the problem. Hardware layer is composed by the real equipment, which includes the controller PLC and the PC where the virtual plant is executed. In the case of software layer, this is composed by the communication Protocol Modbus and the virtual plant developed with EjsS. This free software platform allows the modelling and representation of industrial processes with a realistic graphical interface and an accurate model of the plant (physical model) improving usual SCADAs development tools.

The hybrid labs are being used in the following courses with contents about industrial processes automation and control from University of Alicante: Automation and Robotics in the Computer Science Engineering degree, and Control Systems in the Automatics and Robotics Master’s degree. In both, there are some didactic units about automation and control. As a part of the educational methodology, the hybrid labs are used as practical lessons of these courses. Students program the virtual plants as real industrial systems using the PLCs.

Keywords:

Automation and Control, Interactive Learning, Hybrid laboratories, Virtual and Remote laboratories.