ReMLab: a Java-based remote, didactic measurement laboratory

The availability of didactic experimental laboratories is of utmost importance for technical schools, mainly the engineering faculties. Experimental laboratories, however, represent a great investment, both in term of required money and space, that may become unbearable to the schools, especially when the number of students and the number of subjects that require lab classes increase. Remote laboratories are a very cost-effective solution to this problem, provided that they allow the students to access real instruments from any site connected to Internet without any need for buying commercial software. This paper shows how this goal has been achieved by implementing a Java-based client-server architecture that is presently used as a subsidiary laboratory for the measurement subjects in the Electrical Engineering curriculum at the Politecnico di Milano.