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Put Experiments Online
Dr. Yuhong Yan
NRC-IIT-Fredericton
Canarie Platform Workshop, 27 June, 2007
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Introduction• Why and how to do experiment online
– eLearning and eScience– The state of the art and our past work
• VO: Cyberlab• The challenges
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Why to Do Experiment Online• E-learning
– Experiment is one method for learning– Students can do experiment any time and from any
where– Use just a standard Web browser, no client side
installation– Online experiment is not matured as online courses
• E-Science– Share instruments and devices– Share data and computation resources– Collaborative working environment– Access to remote sensors
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Major Challenges• Generic and reusable solutions for the service
providers– Propriety software and devices are difficult to
integrate and share over networks
• Easy access client side GUI and collaborative environment for the end users– Use just a standard Web browser– Use high end visualization and video conference
software
• Platforms or portals for managing the network– Resource registration and mediation– Scheduling and booking– Accounting
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The State of the Art• Virtual Labs vs. Remote Labs
– Virtual lab: simulated environment– Remote lab: a real lab at the remote site
• Existing online experiments– Electronics– Mechanics– Physics– Robotics– Biology, chemistry, …
• Internet access techniques
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Virtual Electronic Lab• Simulation tools
– Matlab (with Web interface)– ORCAD (use Citrix MetaFrame)– Other simulator possible
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Our Work in SOA Enabled Remote Lab for eLearning
Online Lab System
WebServer
12
3
SOAPMessages
Registry and Broker Server
1
SOAPMessages
service1service1
service2
service3
(With Prof. Hamadou Saliah in UQAM from 2004)
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Control Remote Instruments via Web Services
• Wrap IVI and VISA Instrument as Web Services– WSDL file for operations and interface
• Serialize instrument panel• Web 2.0 techniques for data exchange between
client and Web server• Web 2.0 techniques and real time signal
display• Stateful instrument Web services• Benchmark of latency
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The Relations of the Instrument I/O Standards
Instr. A Instr. B Instr. C
VISA / VISA COM
IVI COM
NI 488.2 NI VXI Others….
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Operating the instrument
IAgilent33220Ptr Fgen;… ...Fgen->Output->Frequency = 2500.0; … ...
Sample code of IVI COM
… …Fgen->WriteString("FREQuency 2500")… …
Sample code of VISA COM
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Digital Multimeter Graphic Interfaces
<xml>
<….>
</xml>
<xsd>
<….>
</xsd>
API Java
validates
uses
generates
XSD file (DMM_GUI.xsd)XML file (DMM_AGILENT_34401A_GUI.xml)
JAXB Java architecture for XML Binding
From IVI specifications (Interchangeable Virtual Instrument)
Java Servlet
GUIBuilder JPanel <table …>JButton <input type=“button” …>
JCheckBox <input type=“checkbox” …> JTextPane <input type=“text” …> JComboBox <select …><option>…
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Web 2.0 Techniques for Data Exchange and Real Time Signal Display
Lutz TautenhahnJS Diagram Builder library
+JS DOM Script
AJAX engine
Servlet
JSON
XML
Web Interface
InstrumentWeb Service
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Conclusions from Our Research• Conditions are ready
– Instruments– Communities in eLearning and eSciences
• The challenges– Generic and reusable solutions for the service
providers– Easy access and good client side GUI for the end
users– Platforms or portals for managing the network– New experiment methods
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My Other Research Work on Web Services
• Self Manageable Web Service Processes– NSERC Discovery project
• Web service process monitoring and diagnosis– ICWS07, ECOWS05
• Web service process composition– ICWS06
• Formal models for Web service processes– AI Communication
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VO - CyberLab• A network for connecting online labs for providing services to
end-users – Research and education labs (I know more about eLearning Labs)– Students and researchers – Via standard Web browser or high-end collaboration environment
• Individual online engineering labs– Canada: UQAM, UNB, etc.– Europe: EPFL, L3S in University of Hannover, Technical University of
Madrid, etc. – USA: iLab at MIT– South America: Brazilian partners– Asia: China?
• Existing networks– CompEduHPC (US, Europe and India)– Prolearn network (Europe)– EduSource, Lornet (Canada)
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Organization of Cyberlab• Policy:
– Canadian institute will create the SOA framework and a portal server– Service portal will be used to manage the job data– Ontology and WSDL standard interface for instruments and
experiments
• Middleware– WS for integrate hardware and sensors– GT for computational resources
• CANARIE funding– Portal/platform development– Ontology and unified interface for instruments and experiments– Generic and reusable solutions for the service providers to put their
labs online– Lightweight Web 2.0 technique for data exchange and data/signal
visualization;– New devices and experiment methods for online experiments;– Online lab collaborative working environment
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The CyberLab Portal• Catelog/registration of online labs• Unified lab presentation, promotion
– Ontology
• eCommerce services: booking, invoicing, reporting
• Support services for service provider– Generic tools to put labs online– Generic approach to wrap instruments and sensors
• Integrate services via workflow and BPEL
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The Cyberlab Development Kit• A downloadable software package to put labs
online in half an hour– Input the instrument type/IP and ready to run– A console to monitor the instrument status and jobs– A set of Web interface for instruments– Other necessary support tools– An easy configurable framework for various
experiments
• New devices and experiment methods for online experiments
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The Collaborative Environment• Remote visualization• Video conference sessions• Collaborative software
– Collaborative logs– Discussion forums– Wikis
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Summary• Put eLearning and eScience labs online• Challenges
– Generic and reusable solutions for the service providers
– Easy access client side GUI and collaborative environment for the end users
– Platforms or portals for managing the network
• Canarie Platform program– Bring the communities together– Bring the research results together– Build a service platform for online labs
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