Design and implementation of the Networked Control Laboratory

The design and implementation of the NCLab (Networked Control Laboratory) which provides a flexible web-based interface to access experimental rigs located in different laboratory is described. All the experimental rigs are connected and managed together by the NCLab system. A three-layer structure, which consists of the main server, client and experimental rigs, is adopted to organize the distributed facilities. The web interface is designed using ActiveX technology which gives the users great flexibility including remote tuning, remote monitoring etc. In order to manage the massive information, MySQL database is also integrated into the system. Through actual test in Intranet/Internet the system time delay is about hundreds milliseconds, and the real-time characteristic of the system is shown to be fine.