Virtual Laboratory: a virtual distributed platform to share and perform experiments

This paper presents a distributed platform that gives researchers a framework to develop and deploy multi modal enabled experiments (haptic, audio, 3d vision), share them on the network with other research institutes and cooperate or remotely teleoperate with partners during the experiments. It gives also the possibility to see and collect significant data to be analyzed so that it's possible to achieve scientific results. All the experiments performed within the platform are real-time and fully interactive distinguishing the proposed Virtual Laboratory from other virtual laboratories that is possible to find in literature. The purpose of such platform is to enhance the speed of development of multi modal haptic enabled applications and improve the whole scientific experiment workflow. In particular the Virtual Laboratory platform is intended to supply a common shared place to perform inter-laboratories experiments and enhance the production of scientific results.