Remote Controlled Laboratory Experiments for Engineering Education in the Post-COVID-19 Era: Concept and Example

The worldwide outbreak due to COVID-19 pandemic lead to a major change in the life style in general and in the education system in specific. To help contain the impacts of COVID-19, universities and schools need to strongly shift to various electronic education models such as online learning, distance learning and blended learning. One of the crucial models that support the success of distance learning especially in engineering education is the remote-controlled experimentations, which allow students to execute the required practical work in a similar way as it conducted in the physical laboratories if it is appropriately designed. This paper introduces an integrated solution for improving the remotely controlled working on the educational laboratory experiments for electrical engineering sector. The proposed solution consists of four main components: Internet of remote-controlled things that represent the required experimentation devices, cloud platform, TCP/IP Internet communication connection, and finally the control and monitoring application. A complete experiment for phasor measurement unit (PMU) system as an example is deployed in the university laboratory with its all components which is completely controlled and managed remotely from the home through Internet. PMU is installed in a prototype of electrical substation with different types of loads. All required experimental data and results are successfully obtained and controlled through the developed system with the required accuracy and performance.