Web-based laboratory for engineering education
Laboratory experiments and practical work by their nature are unavoidable, important, and costly in the engineering education environment. The web laboratory is an educational tool for teaching students the basic principles and methodology in performing a series of experiments on different equipment at any time and from any location through the Internet. In this paper, pre-requests, architecture, and software realization of the Web Laboratory at University of Kragujevac are presented. Organization, development, goals, and possible demands of the laboratory exercise: The inverted pendulum/gantry crane controls (with the capability to test different control algorithms) are also discussed. The applications of the web lab have been tested with the students enrolled at University of Kragujevac and the initial educational results of the implementation of this laboratory exercise are presented.  2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 18: 526536, 2010; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com; DOI 10.1002/cae.20222
engineering education web laboratories distant learning