Implementation of the internet based laboratory for distance education

Information technologies are one of the fast developing subjects in these days. Internet takes the most important part in information technologies. Nowadays, besides the computer controllability, web based control abilities of the systems have been gained popularity. Accordingly, education systems based on computer technologies provides effective models in education. Vocational and technical education requires some tools and experimental studies to be carried out in laboratories. These studies include many measurements and test equipments. If the conditions of laboratories are not good and there are not sufficient equipments, students can only use these systems in the limited time. In addition, experimental studies have to be done under the control of an instructor. In this thesis, an Internet based real time laboratory has been prepared. Electric machines courses, which are an important topic in electrical education, have been chosen as a case study. The system consists of the real time remote accessible experiments via the internet in addition to theoretical presentations with animations and simulations on mathematical models of the electrical machines. The system is mainly based on server/client architecture. All operation steps are executed by the server. So, clients do not need any additional software rather than internet connection and an internet browser. Remotely located users can learn the theoretical information about the electrical machines using interactive web pages. Also, users can use the simulation models vii over the web to observe the machine?s dynamic behaviors under the different parameters. Moreover, they can remotely access to real experimental sets via the internet to perform real time experiments. While the real time experiments are being operated over the internet, the experimental set can be monitored remotely with a network camera.