A Virtual Laboratory for Macro Universities Using Mobile Agent Techniques

This work designs, develops and implements a virtual laboratory for digital circuit design in Macro Universities that can create a rich learning environment for students from all over the world. Our system consists of four parts: agent execution environments, mobile agents, wrapper agents and experimental platforms. Mobile agents are received and executed in the agent execution environment, which provides locations and other resources for the mobile agents. The wrapper agent acts as a middleware for the mobile agent and the experimental platform. The experimental platform is an existing application program that could be a learning program, such as a CAI tool or a design tool, such as a CAD system. The major merit of our system is that it enables network capability for a standalone program without the need for the source code of the original program. The prototype of our virtual laboratory is targeted at a digital circuit laboratory. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of our approach.

[1]  R. D. Meier,et al.  The use of simulation based laboratory exercises to improve the undergraduate digital logic design experience , 1996, Technology-Based Re-Engineering Engineering Education Proceedings of Frontiers in Education FIE'96 26th Annual Conference.

[2]  Iakovos S. Venieris,et al.  Mobile agent standards and available platforms , 1999, Comput. Networks.

[3]  L. Light,et al.  The virtual packaging laboratory , 2000, 2000 Proceedings. 50th Electronic Components and Technology Conference (Cat. No.00CH37070).

[4]  Amir M. Alani,et al.  Soil mechanics "virtual" laboratory-a multimedia development , 2001, Proceedings Fifth International Conference on Information Visualisation.

[5]  Francisco J. Gomez-Arribas,et al.  A World Wide Web based architecture for the implementation of a virtual laboratory , 2000, Proceedings of the 26th Euromicro Conference. EUROMICRO 2000. Informatics: Inventing the Future.

[6]  José M. Grima Palop,et al.  Virtual work bench for electronic instrumentation teaching , 2000, IEEE Trans. Educ..

[7]  Ahmed Karmouch,et al.  Mobile software agents: an overview , 1998, IEEE Commun. Mag..

[8]  D. V. Hall.  Teaching design methodology and "industrial strength" EDA tools in a first-term freshman digital logic course , 1998 .

[9]  Robert McCartney,et al.  Delivering a lab course in a Web-based learning environment , 1997, Proceedings Frontiers in Education 1997 27th Annual Conference. Teaching and Learning in an Era of Change.

[10]  Tuomas Sandholm,et al.  Nomad: Agent System for an Internet-Based , 2000 .

[11]  I. Cavrak,et al.  The Virtual Laboratory project , 2000, ITI 2000. Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces (Cat. No.00EX411).

[12]  Danny B. Lange,et al.  Programming and Deploying Java¿ Mobile Agents with Aglets¿ , 1998 .

[13]  Jon C. Muzio,et al.  A multimedia virtual lab for digital logic design , 1999, Proceedings 1999 IEEE International Conference on Microelectronic Systems Education (MSE'99) 'Systems Education in the 21st Century' (Cat. No.99-63794).

[14]  Lasse Natvig,et al.  Experience from a 450 student/year course on digital logic and computer fundamentals using FPGAs and /spl mu/-controllers , 2001, Proceedings 2001 International Conference on Microelectronic Systems Education.

[15]  Antonio Puliafito,et al.  Programmable agents for flexible QoS management in IP networks , 2000, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

[16]  Ben M. Chen,et al.  A large-scale Web-based virtual oscilloscope laboratory experiment , 2000 .

[17]  M. Joler,et al.  Virtual laboratory instruments and simulations remotely controlled via the Internet , 2001, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium. 2001 Digest. Held in conjunction with: USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting (Cat. No.01CH37229).

[18]  Nicholas Carriero,et al.  Coordination languages and their significance , 1992, CACM.

[19]  Franco Zambonelli,et al.  Coordination for Internet Application Development , 1999, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.

[20]  Ben M. Chen,et al.  A web-based virtual laboratory on a frequency modulation experiment , 2001, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Part C.

[21]  Anind K. Dey.  Enabling the use of context in interactive applications , 2000, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[22]  Andreas Spanias,et al.  Development and evaluation of a Web-based signal and speech processing laboratory for distance learning , 2000, 2000 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37100).