Remote laboratory gateway

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9741256-B2
Application number	US-201113291065-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 7, 2011
Priority date	Nov 7, 2011
Publication date	Aug 22, 2017
Grant date	Aug 22, 2017

Abstract

A remote laboratory gateway enables a plurality of students to access and control a laboratory experiment remotely. Access is provided by an experimentation gateway, which is configured to provide secure access to the experiment via a network-centric, web-enabled interface graphical user interface. Experimental hardware is directly controlled by an experiment controller, which is communicatively coupled to the experimentation gateway and which may be a software application, a standalone computing device, or a virtual machine hosted on the experimentation gateway. The remote laboratory of the present specification may be configured for a software-as-a-service business model.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An experimentation gateway for providing remote access to an experiment, the experimentation gateway comprising one or more processors executing instructions in memory on one or more computers to provide:
a network interface configured to communicatively couple the gateway to a network including an experiment controller providing a remote desktop having features for controlling an experiment, wherein the experiment controller is not visible on an external network; and
a gateway server providing a network-centric application having a graphical user interface (GUI), the network centric application configured to:
provide an interactive graphical element for controlling the remote desktop;
provide multiplexing features enabling a plurality of users to access the experiment, the multiplexing features including queuing, wherein users are queued in a first-in-first-out precedence, and wherein the user at the head of the queue is granted control of the remote desktop; and
provide scheduling features enabling a plurality of users to access a second experiment, the scheduling features including maintaining at least a second queue of users attempting to access the second experiment, and granting experimental control to a user having priority in the second queue;

wherein the experimentation gateway couples with the experiment controller in a local network using a dynamic internal IP address assigned to the controller by a DHCP-like server and, in at least certain modes of operation, the experimentation gateway couples with the experiment controller in an external network using tunneling.

2. The experimentation gateway of claim 1 wherein users in the queue are enabled to view actions taken by the user controlling the remote desktop.

3. The experimentation gateway of claim 1 wherein the gateway server is further configured to provide group features including:
enabling a group of users to access a single remote desktop at one time;
constructing a queue of users in the group;
limiting control of the remote desktop to one user at a time, control passing first to the first user in the queue; and
limiting the time a user may exercise control over the experiment controller, and after expiration of a user's time, passing control of the experiment controller to the next user in the queue.

4. The experimentation gateway of claim 1 further comprising a Network Address Translation (NAT) controller configured to segregate network traffic into internal network traffic and external network traffic.

5. The experimentation gateway of claim 1 wherein the gateway server is provided by a web server.

6. The experimentation gateway of claim 5 the web server is provided by open-source software.

7. The experimentation gateway of claim 1 wherein the gateway server further includes a real-time video server configured to receive a real-time video feed from the experiment controller and to provide an interactive graphical element for interactively viewing real-time video.

8. The experimentation gateway of claim 7 wherein the interactive graphical element further includes controls for panning the real-time video display.

9. The experimentation gateway of claim 8 wherein the interactive graphical element further includes controls for angling and zooming the real-time video display.

10. The experimentation gateway of claim 7 wherein the streaming video server is configured to provide compressed video.

11. The experimentation gateway of claim 1 wherein the GUI is further configured to provide a quality of service control for controlling quality of display from the remote desktop.

12. The experimentation gateway of claim 11 wherein the quality of service control includes a resolution control.

13. The experimentation gateway of claim 11 wherein the quality for service control includes a refresh rate control.

14. The experimentation gateway of claim 11 further comprising a manual screen update control.

15. The experimentation gateway of claim 1 wherein the experimentation gateway is configured to communicatively couple to a network having a plurality of experiment controllers.

16. The remote laboratory system of claim 1 wherein the gateway server is configured to record statistical data, including usage statistics.

17. The remote laboratory system of claim 1 wherein the gateway server is configured to provide an instructor with a histogram of usage statistics.

18. A remote laboratory system comprising one or more processors executing instructions in memory on one or more computers to provide:
experimental hardware configured to be communicatively coupled to and controlled by an experiment controller;
a secure network;
an experiment controller communicatively coupled to and configured to control the experimental hardware, the experiment controller comprising:
an experiment interface providing the communicative coupling to the experiment controller;
a network interface configured to communicatively couple the experiment controller to the secure network;
a virtual network connection (VNC) server configured to provide a remote desktop to a user logging on to the experiment controller, the remote desktop including a graphical virtual instrument for controlling the experimental hardware;
an experimentation gateway communicatively coupled to the experiment controller via the secure network and configured to communicate with a plurality of student nodes and instructor nodes via an external network, the experimentation gateway comprising a web server configured to provide a network-centric graphical user interface (GUI) to students and instructors, the experimentation gateway further providing scheduling features enabling a plurality of students to access a plurality of experiments, the scheduling features including: maintaining a queue of users attempting to access one of the experiments, and granting experimental control to a user having priority in the queue;
wherein the experimentation gateway couples with the experiment controller in a local network using a dynamic internal IP address assigned to the controller by a DHCP-like server and, in at least certain modes of operation, the experimentation gateway couples with the experiment controller in an external network using tunneling.

19. The remote laboratory system of claim 18 wherein the VNC server is provided as a virtual machine running in software on the experiment controller.

20. The remote laboratory system of claim 18 further comprising a camera operably connected to the experiment controller, the camera configured to be remotely controllable by the experiment controller and to provide a video display of the experimental hardware.

21. The remote laboratory system of claim 20 wherein the camera is operably configured to provide pan, zoom, and angle controls.

22. The remote laboratory system of claim 20 wherein the experiment controller further comprises a video broadcasting interface configured to provide real-time streaming video to the experimentation gateway.

23. The remote laboratory system of claim 22 wherein the real-time streaming video broadcasting interface is provided as a virtual machine running in software on the experiment controller.

24. The remote laboratory system of claim 18 wherein the experiment interface is a bus selected from the group consisting of USB, VMEbus, RS-232, RS-485, and GPIB.

25. A remote laboratory system comprising one o

Assignees

• Akopian David
• Melkonyan Arsen
• Pontual Murillo
• Huang Grant
• Gampe Andreas Robert
• Univ Texas

Inventors

• Akopian David
• Melkonyan Arsen
• Pontual Murillo
• Huang Grant
• Gampe Andreas Robert

Classifications

• G09G2358/00

  Arrangements for display data security · CPC title

• G06Q50/00

  Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism (healthcare informatics G16H) · CPC title

• G09G2370/02

  Networking aspects · CPC title

• G09B5/00 Primary

  Electrically-operated educational appliances (working with questions and answers G09B7/00; simulators G09B9/00; advertising or displaying in general G09F) · CPC title