Scalable Remote Labs Using Miniature Setups and Partial Streams

Abstract

Remote labs allow students from anywhere in the world to access and conduct experiments without the need to physically be present in a lab at anytime. This is extremely important for students with little to no access to proper science labs because of a lack of infrastructure or a pandemic. A major open problem statement is adding scalability to existing Remote Labs, for several reasons, including the ability to handle growing demand while reducing costs and increasing flexibility. There is a potential for scaling up the process so that queue delay can be removed and people are able to access dedicated experiment setups. The work presented in this thesis is aimed at scalability of Remote Labs by using miniaturization and partial streams. Miniaturization involves making the experiment apparatus simple, smaller and portable. Partial streams involves using a single camera for creating point-of-view video streams for multiple units of the same experiment apparatus. Both aspects operate in tandem in order to be able to scale up the in-house Remote Labs system. The proof of concept demonstration of the methodology put forward is conducted using two miniaturized setups of the school-level experiment “Vanishing Rod”. These experiments are set up in our Remote Labs at IIIT Hyderabad, India (IIIT-H). The miniaturized setups are 3D printed in the lab. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a performance comparison in terms of cost, size, and energy consumption is carried out for the proposed architecture (miniaturized + partial streaming) compared to the traditional setup (lab-scale + single-streaming). In both cases, the software framework for the dashboard is developed and implemented at IIIT-H. With the above approach, power cost is reduced to one-sixth and actuation component cost is reduced to one-fifth. In addition, the miniature setups require less space as compared to the lab-scale setups, making it easier to install.