Virtual Lab: Remote Access and Speed Control of DC Motor using Ward-Leonard System

Abhishek Choudhary, Shiv Aishwarya Singh, Mohd. Faizan Malik, Anil Kumar, Mukesh Kumar Pathak and Vinod Kumar

Limited resources and requirement of regular maintenance of equipment in traditional laboratory supports idea of Web-accessible laboratories which provides facility of online experimentation on real processes. The objective of this project is to demonstrate the real-time webbased laboratory experiment conduction by accessing the laboratory set-up from a remote location and measure the experimental parameters by generating the control commands at a distant client. This architecture is developed to demonstrate the remote learning process using graphical programming tool LabVIEWTM10. The principle behind the implementation of remote laboratory session is to deliver the image of the control panel of the virtual Instruments to the remote client. The experimental hardware is linked to the webserver by Data acquisition (DAQ) interface card. The proof of concept has been demonstrated by controlling the speed of DC motor using Ward-Leonard method and recording the measurements using Virtual Instruments.

Abstract:

another milestone in virtualization of instruments. It provides the deployment, management and sharing of online laboratories that interface with hardware device. Concept of such remotely accessing laboratories is very crucial for the developing countries where limited educational facilities are available. The lack of such facilities should not undermine the students studying in these institutes. The virtual Machine and Instrumentation workbench is a novel idea born out of the need for free and straightforward access to better facilities for all the engineering students. The virtual Machine and instrumentation workbench is a grand venture of GOI to enable the students of each and every technical institute of India to get an easy and effective access to the expensive laboratory instruments through virtualisation of the lab equipment. This venture provides any student to conduct practical experiments through the medium of internet. For a student to try out any experiment, he/she should first get himself/herself registered on the website. After registration, they can choose a time slot offered for the experiment. If it is available, then the user is allowed to conduct the experiments during the allocated slot otherwise he/she can get from the server what user with slot wants it to do. The interface of the experiments has been designed keeping in mind the nature of the experiments to make it as real as possible. A lot of effort has gone into making the application extremely user friendly so that students face little difficulty in carrying out the experiments. After the experiments are conducted, the students are given a multiple choice quiz to refresh their knowledge on the subject. Also, the theory of the experiment conducted is explained briefly yet accurately in the report to get an in-depth understanding of the 1

Keywords: DAQ card, LabVIEWTM 2010,

Ward Leonard system

1. Introduction:
From the early 90s, efforts are being made to run the laboratory experiment via World Wide Web [1]. In 1999, a remote control experiment on oscilloscope was developed in VLAB laboratory of National University of Singapore [2]. The MIT ILAB architecture was also

s is also experiment. The experimental setup visible during the experiment throu ugh the use of a camera which is controlled by th he user. The rest of the paper is organise ed as follows. Section 2 describes the overall virtual lab architecture including both ha ardware and software. An application example, that is, speed control of DC motor using Ward-L Leonard speed control method is also described in Section 2. Section 3 and 4 discuss the benefits and challenges of application respecti ively. Finally, Section 5 offers some conclud ding remarks, challenges we are facing and poi ints out some thoughts for our future work.

2.1 Hardware architecture

u used

in

system

2. System Architecture e:
Current Sensor Voltage sensor

Electrical Machine AC/DC

S Speed Sensor

Starter

Relays RPM Indicator

2.2 Server Applicatio on

Server application is one of o the most important parts of this architecture as it acts as a controlling or communic cating link between machine and user. Ele ectrical machine is indirectly controlled by ser rver application with the help of DAQ card. Server application also do oes filtering and time averaging of various signal ls of sensor. So it also performs the task of sign nal conditioner. User request are sent through data socket server. Server also accesses the ce entral database for slot booking, username and password validation. This feature is facilitated by Microsoft ODBC server. Data Socket is a light weig ght, standalone, enduser application programm ming interface (API) for connecting to data from a number of sources local files, file es on FTP or Web servers, and data items on ODBC O Servers. Data Socket in LabVIEWTM sim mplifies real time data exchange between applica ations on server and client. It is better than TC CP/IP in which data into an unstructured strea am of bytes in the server application and it ch hange the bytes back into its original format in client application. So, 2

DAQ Card

Client With time slot D-link Camera

Client without time slot

Fig 1: System architecture of the virtua al machine lab

The paper aims at demonstrating the t process of Machines virtualization of electrical experiment and it also shows how it enables the person to operate and perform the e experiments via internet. Practical knowledge e helps to get understanding of theoretical kn nowledge i.e. helps to understand the actua al (practical) behaviour of the system (electrical machines). The virtualization is achieved through the following steps:1. Development of hardware 2. Development of server mo odule 3. Development of client module

there are lots of chances in losing data packets. However, Data socket was designed purposely for sharing and publishing live data in measurement and automation applications. Server module is divided into three tabs: Home tab Admin tab Experiment tab

Fig 4: This is the home tab in server module. Here, booked slots are indicated with green led.

Whenever administrator starts the server application, he encounters home Tab. Administrator enjoys various facilities such as modifying user account. 2.2.1 HOME TAB As soon as, administrator login is done with correct username and password, tab changes to home as shown in Figure 4.
Fig 2: Tab flow diagram in server module

In this tab, administrator can see slots booked on that particular day and name of the user who have current slot. 2.2.2 ADMIN TAB This tab helps administrator to employ his admin rights. This tab is divided into three parts: Admin: This part of admin tab has a very important control which employ administrator to allow user to connect to machine or not. This facility is useful when admin is performing some assessment work and he does not want user to interfere. Edit user: Here, administrator can modify the user account information. Contact user: This part enables administrator to contact user. This feature is highly useful when administrator want to inform user about the change in schedule. 3

Fig 3: Figure shows the server window. The administrator user id and password are required for login. At this point of time application is in anonymous state.

2.3 Client Module

Similar to the server applic cation, client module also works in different stat tes. We have divided the whole experiment into five f basic steps as: Home Perform experimen nt Observation plot an nd calculation Evaluation Report generation The client module connec cts or contact to the server module via shared d variables that are shared over internet by us sing the Data Socket Server toolkit of the LabVIEW. L Client application is designed in i such that it can exercise limited control ov ver machine through server application.

Fig 5: Figure shows the contact user par rt of admin tab.

2.2.3 EXPERIMENT TAB ns all control This is the main tab as it contain concerned to start and control of Machine. y the user. As These controls can be altered by soon as user changes any cont trol in client application these changes are ref flected to the server application through data soc cket server.

2.3.1

Home tab

This tab works in the simil lar way as the server module home tab accept that t in client module we have not allowed th he user to directly connect to the central database d of the lab instead, it connect via the server application.

Fig 6: Various sensor readings are being g shown in this figure. Graph is showing the generated d voltage with respect to time

tion with the The server responds to user act help of DAQ card. Server applica ation with the help DAQ card sends the contro ol signal and acquires the values of sensed data.

Fig 7: Client tab structure is shown s in flow diagram

he updates of This state avails the user to see th the lab as well as allow to login to o perform the experiment so that he can book th he slot or can modify his booked slot. User with w slot can access the experiment.

Generated voltage and spe eed readings can be saved in table format by clicking on the save button. This window shows s the live view of the laboratory to the user, so that t he can sense the changes that are happenin ng with the machine. Hence, it provides a real lab boratory scenario.

2.3.3

Observation plotting calculation ta ab

and

This state of client module m presents the observation in the grap phical format and performs the required calc culation at the back end to find the other parameters p and will display the final observatio on to the user.

Fig 8: On this window user can book slot and can modify the slot. He can see the already boo oked slots.

2.3.2

Perform Experimen nt tab

The user with slot can perform th he experiment on this tab. After starting the machine, the user can vary the generated voltage e across the generator terminal as per desired by increasing or decreasing the value of the resistance of separated filed of DC generator.

Fig 10: This figure presents th he perform experiment window of client t module.

Fig. 11: Figure shows the graph h between the speed and armature voltage of the generator as recorded in the experimen nt. Fig 9: DC Generator field resistance setu up is developed using solid state relays where relay sig gnals are user controlled

2.3.4

Evaluation tab

3. Benefits of the application

The application serves various purposes. It uses a single hardware and provides remote access for multiple users. The live video streaming is another feature that eliminates the need of being physically present in the lab. We have also provided an HTTP based chatting service on our website that can directly allow the user to contact to the administrator of the lab for assistance.

Here, the user is provided with number of multiple choice questions related to the experiment, he had performed. The data base of prerecorded questions is available at the server end, these question are published over the internet. The purpose of this tab is to evaluate the users understanding of the experiment.

4. Challenges
The future work will be directed to deal with some issues to increase the reliability. As the number of users increase, the bandwidth limitation will prevent the live streaming of the experiment. The number of lost data packet also decreases the reliability of the laboratory architecture.
Fig 12: Figure displays the evaluation state of the client module

5. Conclusion
The complete experimental setup, which is remotely controlled by the user, has been developed. The details of the hardware and software system have been discussed. Efforts are being put to make the experiment user friendly. The concept can be extended to develop new experiments. This will pave the way for the better quality of education in India.

2.3.5

Report generation tab

Here, user enters into the last step of experiment. In this tab, Client module piles up all the observations like graphs, recorded readings, number of questions attempted, and number of questions corrected etc. With the help of report generation toolkit in LabVIEW an html page based report is displayed in a web browser active X control object.

6. Acknowledgement:
Authors are thankful to MHRD and IIT Roorkee for providing financial assistance and laboratory facility and infrastructure to develop the virtual laboratory.

7. References:1. A. Bhandari, M.H. Shor, Access to an instructional control laboratory experiment through the World Wide Web, in Proceeding of the 1998 American Control Conference, Philadelphia, 1998, pp. 1319 1325. C.C. Ko, B.M. Chen, S.H. Chen, V. Ramakrishnan, R. Chen, S.Y. Hu, Y. Zhuang, A large scale web-based virtual

2.
Fig 13: Client module in report generation tab

3.

oscilloscope laboratory experiment, IEE Engineering Science and Education Journal 9 (2) (2000) 6976. http://www.ni.com/datasocket/

Development (MHRD) India. Mukesh Kumar Pathak did his graduation in Electrical Engineering from L.D. Engineering College, Ahmedabad (Gujarat), India, in 1986. He joined Electrical Engineering Department of NIT, Kurukshetra (Haryana), India, as a Lecturer in 1987. In 1989, he joined Electrical Engineering Department of NIT, Hamirpur (HP), India, where he served till 2007. Presently, he is working as an Assistant Professor in Electrical Engineering Department of IIT Roorkee, India, where he joine din 2007.He obtained both his M.Tech and Ph.D. degree from IIT Delhi, India. He has co-authored a book on Electric Machines. He is a member of IEEE, life fellow of Institution of Engineering (India), life member of Indian Society of Technical Education (ISTE) and Systems Society of India (SSI). Vinod Kumar is Professor and head of Electrical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. He is also head of Continuing Education Centre and Quality Improvement Program Centre of IIT Roorkee. He received his both Masters and PhD degree from IIT Roorkee (erstwhile University of Roorkee). He has many academic awards, distinctions and scholarships and more than 150 research papers to his credit. He has 34 years of rich experience of teaching & research. He is a life fellow of IETE and is a senior member of IEEE. His areas of interest are Biomedical Signal and Image Processing, Pattern Recognition, Medical Instrumentation.

Abhishek Choudhary is pursuing Bachelors degree in electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Roorkee. He has been working as student research assistant in Virtual Electrical Machine Lab (VEML), IIT Roorkee (India). His research interest includes Wireless Communication and Sensor Networks, Signal & Image Processing, Computer Vision, Vision Guided Robotics, Bio-Medical Instrumentation. He has also completed project on implementation and design of 'smart' Wireless Sensor Networks in Integrated Sensors, Intelligent Systems (ISIS) Laboratory at the University of Calgary, Canada. Shiv Aishwarya Singh is pursuing Integrated dual degree in electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Roorkee. He has been working as student research assistant in Virtual Electrical Machine Lab (VEML), IIT Roorkee (India). His research interest includes power electronics, power system and control engineering. Mohd. Faizan Malik is pursuing Integrated dual degree in electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Roorkee. He has been working as student research assistant in Virtual Electrical Machine Lab (VEML), IIT Roorkee (India). His research interest includes power electronics, digital image processing and control engineering. Anil Kumar completed his Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee and is working as Junior Research Fellow at Biomedical Signal Processing Lab, IIT Roorkee, India. His research interest includes Machine Learning, Biomedical Signal and Image Processing, Autonomous Robotics, Computer Vision, Computer Aided Instrumentation and Software Application Development. He has successfully completed major projects sponsored by IRDE Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO India), Rajasthan Electronics and Instruments Ltd. (India) and Ministry of Human Resource and