IMTC 2006 Instrumentation and Measurement

Technology Conference
Sorrento, Italy 24-27 April 2006

Remote Didactic Laboratory G. Savastano:

the Italian Experience for the E-learning at the Technical Universities
in the Field of the Electrical and Electronic Measurements,
Overview on Didactic Experiments
G. Andria1), A. Baccigalupi2), M. Borsic3), P. Carbone4), P. Daponte5), C. De Capua6), A. Ferrero7),
D. Grimaldi8), A. Liccardo9), N. Locci10), A. M. L. Lanzolla1), D. Macii11), C. Muscas10), L. Peretto12),
D. Petri11), S. Rapuano5), M. Riccio13), S. Salicone7), F. Stefani4)
1)

DIASS, Polytechnic of Bari, viale del Turismo, 8, 74100 Taranto, E-mail: {andria, lanzolla}@misure.poliba.it,
2)
Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80121 Naples, E-mail: baccigal@unina.it,
3)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Zagreb, Croatia, E-mail: mladen.borsic@hmd.hr,
4)
DIEI, University of Perugia, Via G. Duranti, 93, 06125 Perugia, E-mail: carbone@diei.unipg.it,
5)
Dept. of Engineering, University of Sannio, Corso Garibaldi 107, 82100 Benevento, E-mail: {daponte, rapuano}@unisannio.it,
6)
Dept. of Computer Science and Electrical Technology, University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria,
Via Graziella, Loc. Feo di Vito, 89060 Reggio Calabria, E-mail: decapua@unirc.it,
7)
Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo Da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano,
E-mail: {alessandro.ferrero, simona.salicone}@polimi.it,
8)
DEIS, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende (CS), E-mail: grimaldi@deis.unical.it,
9)
DIEL, Univ. Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80121 Naples, E-mail: aliccard@unina.it,
10)
DIEE, University of Cagliari, Piazza dArmi 3, 09123 Cagliari, E-mail: {locci, carlo}@diee.unica.it,
11)
DIT, University of Trento, Via Sommarive 14, 38050 Povo (TN), E-mail: petri@dit.unitn.it,
12)
Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Univ. of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, E-mail: lorenzo.peretto@mail.ing.unibo.it,
13)
Didagroup S.p.A., Viale dei Sanniti, 1, S. Giorgio del Sannio (BN), E-mail: mriccio@didagroup.it.
ITALY
Abstract The Remote Didactic Laboratory Laboratorio Didattico
Remoto LA.DI.RE. G. Savastano is the e-learning
measurement laboratory supported by the Italian Ministry of
Education and University. It involves about twenty Italian
universities and provides the students of electric and electronic
measurement courses with the access to remote measurement
laboratories delivering different didactic activities related to
measurement experiments. In order to demonstrate the versatility
for didactic use, the overview of same experiments is given. The
didactic experiments summarized in the paper concern with:
measurement characterization of instruments and communication
systems, measurement devices for remote laboratory, basic
electrical measurements, magnetic measurements, electromagnetic
interferences measurements, and signal processing for
measurement applications.

Keywords Remote learning, remote measurement laboratory,

didactic measurement experiments.

I. INTRODUCTION
The Remote Didactic Laboratory Laboratorio Didattico
Remoto LA.DI.RE. G.. Savastano is the e-learning
laboratory, financed by the Italian Ministry of Education
and University within the National Operating Programme
(PON) 2000-2006 [1].
LA.DI.RE. G. Savastano aims to operatively provide
the students of Electric and Electronic Measurement
Courses with a large number of practical experiments

0-7803-9360-0/06/$20.00 2006 IEEE

available in geographically distributed didactic laboratories

remotely accessible through the web.
The innovative software and hardware architecture and
the novelty aspects concerning the delivered didactic
services have been presented in [2].
In this paper, some laboratory experiments are shown
with the intent to highlight the versatility of the use and the
innovative contribution of the remote didactic laboratory to
the teaching program of Instrumentation and Measurement.
In particular, the didactic experiments address the
requirements that in teaching of electric and electronic
measurement topics, the learners should achieve an accurate
practical experience by working in real conditions and on
real instruments [3], [4].
The practical experiments summarized in the following
concern with the topics: characterization of measurement
instruments, characterization of communication systems,
measurement devices for remote laboratory, basic electrical
measurements, magnetic measurements, electromagnetic
interferences measurements, and signal processing for
measurement applications.
The modular structure of the LA.DI.RE. G. Savastano
permits to include new practical experiments in order to meet
interesting topics according to the contributions and the
requirements of the users. All the didactic practical experiments
are available at the web address:

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http://www.misureremote.unisannio.it.

II. ORVERVIEW ON THE EXPERIMENTS AVAILABLE

AT THE REMOTE DIDACTIC MEASUREMENT
LABORATORY
The available experiments are organized to cover all the didactic
aspects in the field of the electrical and electronic measurement.
In the following only few of the available experiments are
summarized with the intent to show the versatility and adaptability
of each experiment to the innovative requirements.
2.1 Sampling and windowing of signals
The experiment allows the student to become familiar with both
the signal sampling and windowing. Two different learning levels
are available. In the first one (Fig.1a), the student experiments (i) the
techniques for signal sampling, and (ii) the effects in the frequency
domain of the different modality of the possible signal windowing
techniques. In the second level (Fig.1b), by simultaneously setting
the characteristics of both the digital signal generator and the digital
oscilloscopes the student experiments (i) the techniques for signal
sampling, and (iii) the effects of signal windowing.
2.2 Digital oscilloscope characterization
The experimental characterization of the Digital Store
Oscilloscope (DSO) is performed by means of tests according to the
standard IEEE 1241-2000. The tests that the student can run are:

a)

b)
Fig.1 Sampling (a) and windowing (b) of signals.

evaluation of the transition thresholds by the occurrence

histogram;
compensation of the transition thresholds;
evaluation of the experimental transfer characteristic of the
oscilloscope and comparison with the ideal one;
evaluation of the Differential Non Linearity (DNL) and Integral
Non Linearity (INL);
evaluation of the RMS noise in order to evaluate (i) the Signal to
Noise And Distortion (SINAD), and (ii) the Effective Number
Of Bit (ENOB);
SINAD evaluation in both time and frequency domains.
The DSO available for test is the Tektronix TDS 210, the signal
generator is the Agilent 33120A. Both the instruments are connected
to the PC through a IEEE 488 standard bus.
2.3 Measuring energy and average power dissipated by Bluetooth
modules
Nowadays, power consumption is one of most critical design
issues for a large variety of small-size portable items [5]. In order to
tackle this issue, one of the subjects of the remote learning network
focuses on the theoretical background and the implementation of an
automated virtual Instrument (VI) to perform a thorough power and
energy characterization of Bluetooth modules. The modules chosen
for the virtual lab session (i.e. Zeevo ZV3001Z) can be controlled
from the PC by sending specific sequences of proprietary AT
commands through a plain serial RS-232 connection. By using such
commands and interpreting the modules replies appropriately, a
module can be driven in one of the main operating states of the
Bluetooth protocol for a specified amount of time. Generally, each
operating state is characterized by a different amount of activity that
mirrors in a different profile of the current drawn by the module
under test. In particular, while the DC supply voltage applied to the
pins of the module is approximately constant and comprised
between 2.5V and 5V, the current waveform exhibits a clear
impulsive and time-varying pattern. In a virtual lab session, remote
users can drive two Bluetooth modules at the same time using the
front panel of the VI. One of the modules (i.e. the device under test)
is driven in any of the following operating states, i.e. [6], [7]:
Reset;
Discovery;
Connected state (master), no data traffic;
Connected state (slave), no data traffic;
Connected state, data send (TX);
Connected state, data receive (RX);
Sniff mode;
Hold mode;
Park mode;
while the other serves only for basic communication purposes. After
reaching the desired main operating state, current and voltage
measurements are performed continuously for an adjustable amount
of time Ts using either two Agilent 34401A Digital Multi-Meters
(DMMs) or the Tektronix 3052B DSO. In order to minimize the
loading effect due to instrument insertion, an high-accuracy 1:
transducer is used to transform the current waveform into a voltage
signal which can be easily visualized by the DSO. Eventually,
collected measurement results are combined according to the
definitions of average power and energy. Final values are displayed

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with the corresponding standard uncertainty [8]. From the

educational point of view, the learning object associated with the lab
session guides a remote learner towards the step-by-step solution of
the proposed measurement problem, covering important issues:
Instrument selection and performance limitations;
Instrumental setup choices;
Analysis of loading and connection effects;
Hints on printed circuit board design for wireless modules
testing purposes;
Measurement uncertainty analysis.
2.4 AC power interference cancellation in ECG signals using
adaptive filters
Acquiring good quality electric signals from biological sources
is usually a difficult task. Electro-CardioGram (ECG), ElectroEncephaloGram (EEG), and Electro-MyoGram (EMG) signals
originate from sensors that provide small intensity values, on the
order of tens of mV at most. Moreover, signals are easily corrupted
by interference and noises generated by other electrical devices
working in the same environment. Usually, the major source is
represented by the 50Hz mains power interference (AC power
interference). The developed lab experiment has been purposely
designed to show the effects of a sinusoidal interference having a
frequency of 50Hz on an ECG signal. The objective is to show how
a right performed numerical processing of a measurement signal can
effectively improve the capabilities in estimating the required
parameters. The implemented adaptive filter was proposed by
Halstrom and Tompkins [9]. It performs a continuous estimation of
the interferences amplitude and phase and uses this estimation to
correct the input signal, as shown in Fig.2, that is based on
experimental data. In particular, the experiment shows how filtering
the ECG signal improves measurement of the ECG peak value,
which gives information on the opening of cardiac valves. An
important part of the lab activity is to explain how the uncertainty is
to be estimated using only the standard methodology [8]. The used
instrumentation consists of a processing system (a personal
computer) equipped with a data acquisition board (a National
Instrument PCI-5911 High Speed Digitizer) and an arbitrary

waveform generator (an Agilent 33120A 15 MHz Arbitrary

Waveform Generator). The waveform generator provides the
synthesized cardiac signal that is corrupted by the AC power line
interference. The filtering action is performed in real-time by the
processing system that also implements the user interface.
This is composed of controls to configure the filter, several
plotting of time and frequency representations of the ECG signal,
and of indicators with measurement results, including uncertainty
estimations. A complete documentation explains the theoretical
basis of adaptive filtering and the principles of measurement
uncertainty estimation. Other documents guide the student to the
execution of the lab activity and contain questions to test his
comprehension level.
2.5 A local measurement bench for remote laboratory activities
A set of hardware modules, emulating actual
measurement instruments and a bread-box for circuits
assembling are provided to the student on demand. The
student can act on his measurement bench by assembling
the circuit and by connecting the emulated instruments and
power supply to the circuit as it actually should be done in
the laboratory according to a selected exercise.
The correctness of both the circuit connections and the
instrument wirings is dynamically and automatically
verified by the system which is interfaced with the PC
through the serial port.
If the student performs all hardware operations correctly,
the measurement on the actual system, located in a remote
laboratory, will be performed and the results sent to the
front panel of the students PC.
The whole system, Fig.3, consists in the server unit and
in a given number of client units. The server unit is located
in the remote laboratory and hosts the web server and
allows the actual measurement benches to be controlled.
Each client unit is realized by means of suitable devices
connected to the PC which allow to emulate a real
measurement bench. Such devices represent a novelty in the
field of the e-learning.
The student is supplied with all the stuff for performing
the exercises along with a CD-ROM containing a proper
software. When running it, a number of html-format pages

Internet
Serial
connection

IEEE 488
connection

multifunction devices
&
P-Control Box

one of the
real benches

Client

Server

Fig.3 Local bench for the remote laboratory activities.

Fig.2 ECG signal amplitude before and after filtering,

and the power spectrum around 50 Hz before and after filtering.

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are opened, which introduce the student into the practice

activity by explaining how to perform the initial settings
and the experiments. Then, the student choose an exercise
and some pages dealing with the theory of the experiment
will be displayed.
Then, he/she starts to build the circuit on a breadboard
and to connect this last to the devices, according to the
chosen exercise. Only when all the wirings are correctly
performed and the circuit is correctly mounted on the
breadboard (a suitable software helps the student to correct
his mistakes), the PC accesses, via internet, the server unit.
The front panels of the remote- instruments will appear on the
screen of the students PC allowing to interact by setting the proper
controls.
Finally, the student will perform the measurement on the actual
circuit and receive the instrument readings.

Fig.5 Virtual instrument for analog and digital multimeter comparison.

2.6 Measuring the characteristic impedance of coaxial cable

The evaluation of the characteristic impedance of the coaxial
cable is the usual reflect meter test performed to assess the quality
during the industrial production. This test consists on supplying the
coaxial cable with a square wave at the frequency of 100MHz. In
the case the load impedance is equal to the characteristic impedance
of the cable, the system is perfectly matched and the reflection is
avoided at the output of the cable. In the opposite case at the input is
available the superposition of the incident and reflected waves. Fig.4
shows the shapes of the incident and reflected waves at the input
section of the coaxial cable during the load resistance variation
before the cancellation of the reflected wave.

Fig.6 Multimeter set-up.

Fig.7 Oscilloscope set-up.

2.7 Basic electrical measurements

Some simple experiments suitable for a basic course on
electrical measurements will be discussed. Among others, we
believe that multimeters and oscilloscopes are the most important
Fig.8 Virtual instrument for oscilloscope experiment.

instruments, and therefore special attention should be dedicated to

understanding their behaviour and performance.
2.7.1 Multimeters comparison
In this experiment the readings of analog (magneto-electric) and
DMMs are compared in order to investigate the behavior of the
instruments for input signals featuring different frequencies and
waveforms. The PC controls, by means of a IEEE 488 interface,
both the function generator and a 6 digits DMM. The behavior of
the analog instrument (i.e. the full wave rectifier and the mechanical
movement) is simulated and reproduced by a virtual index (Fig.5),
the realism of the experiment is improved by a webcam which
depicts the actual modifications presented in the display of the
instruments (Fig.6). Bandwidth and accuracy comparison are the
main output of this trial.

Fig.4 Superposition of the incident and reflected waves at the input

section of the coaxial cable.

2.7.2 Oscilloscope measurements

By means of the experimental set-up (Fig.7) consisting of the
function generator and the DSO managed by a VI, shown in Fig.8,
the student can familiarize with the main functionalities of these
instruments, by remotely turning the knobs, sliding the cursors and
viewing the results in the screen of the PC. In addition, the student
can experiment the voltage-current curve for a commercial diode, by

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visualizing the curves at low frequency, but also the ones exhibited
at high frequency when the effects of the stray capacitance can be
appreciated.
2.8 Magnetic measurements
The experiment allows the student to analyze the
characteristics of magnetic materials and the influence of
hysteretic phenomena on magnetic and electrical circuits.
This is the first experiment pointed out (i) to include the
interactive verification of the knowledge acquired by the
students, and (ii) to be executed in four different languages:
Italian, English, Croatian, and Romanian. These new features
will broad the laboratory utility for spreading the
communication and the knowledge transfer among teachers
and students coming from the Countries where these
languages are spoken. This approach follows the current
European Union efforts devoted (i) to expand newest
educational principles to the partners and neighbor countries,
and (ii) to create the European education and research area.
By means of the LMS the student is also supplied with
documentation including: (i) the theoretical background, (ii) the
hardware and circuit descriptions, and (iii) the user guide. Before
starting the experiment, the student should have good knowledge of
the principles of magnetic circuits. During the practical phase the
student will study hysteretic phenomena and how changes in
magnetic circuit affect the BH curve. After performing this
experiment the student should be able to examine hysteretic
characteristic and estimate its critical values (total and specific core
losses, voltage for achieving saturation, coercive force and residual
induction of the material and spectral characteristics of main coil
current). Experiment is made with two different magnetic materials
a soft and a hard one. This is an important issue for understanding
the wide range of currents to be applied to magnetically saturate
different magnetic materials. Student has to perform measurements
on both of them and compare the results.
2.9 Electromagnetic interference measurements
The experiment allows the measurement of conducted
electromagnetic interferences emitted by a Variable Speed Drive
(VSD), within the ranges 9-150 kHz and 150 kHz-30 MHz
(respectively indicated in EMC Standards as A and B bands [10]).
VSD (i.e. the Equipment Under Test, EUT) consists of a three-phase
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) inverter, asynchronous three-phase

Fig. 9. Layout of station for EM interference measurement.

Fig. 10. Conducted interferences emitted by VSD.

motor and hysteresis brake axially tied to the motor. The

measurement station, Fig.9 is composed by (i) electromagnetic
(EM) interference receiver to acquire EM disturbances emitted by
the Equipment Under Test (EUT) in the frequency band 9 kHz to 30
MHz; (ii) three-phase Line Impedance Stabilization Network
(LISN), to pickup disturbances generated by the EUT onto the
power lines; (iii) brake controller, which sets a braking torque so to
vary the speed of the motor-brake system; (iv) a PC, that supervises
data acquisition and processing sessions. Students can select the
VSD speed by acting on the brake controller and request for an
interference measurement. They receive an HTML page displaying
the measurement results. Interference voltages are presented in
tabulated and graphic format (Fig.10), highlighting values that
overcome the recommended limits according to EN 61800-3
Standard [11].
The system allows also to teach the underlying theory of
operation, the details of the procedure recommended by the
standard, the principle of operation of the devices used for the
experiment. The setting page of the EMI receiver has tags linking
sections with details of the filter. Moreover, information is available
concerning how they work, the block diagram, and the index of
resources on the net about the topic. So the user that wants to learn
how the system and each component works can click on the
detector label to access pages devoted to further explanation.
2.10 Uncertainty characterization of digital instrumentation
The experiment allows the student to evaluate the overall
uncertainty characteristics of a generic digital instrument by
analyzing separately the different uncertainty contributions and their
influence on measurement accuracy. For this aim, four noise
generators have been implemented to represent the gain, offset, non
linearity and quantization errors, respectively, on the basis of the
relevant information available directly from the instrument
technical-data. For each generator (i.e. for each error-source
contribution), the student can select the probability distribution
(uniform white or Gaussian white) and the deviation standard level,
according to the accuracy characteristics of the under-test digitalinstrument. The developed program calculates and displays the
histogram of the generate signals (Fig.11). The student can select the
number of intervals used to generate the histogram.
Finally, the probability distribution of the total instrument error
is calculated by means of the convolution of the four input
distributions. Then, the plot of the histogram is generated and the
mean, deviation standard and variance values are displayed.

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Fig.11 Virtual instrument for uncertainty characterization experiment.

This experiment also allows to compute a generic combinational

statistics among several random variables, by adding several input
data sets. The student can set up the linear combination coefficients
(sensitivity coefficients) of the selected input signals and can study
the influence of single contribution on a global random variable. In
particular, he/she can evaluate the statistical distribution (uniform,
Gaussian, triangular, etc.) of the measurement error and all its
characteristic parameters, according to the well-known reference
standard [8].
III. CONCLUSIONS
The paper furnishes an overview on the didactic experiments
available at the Remote Didactic Laboratory Laboratorio Didattico
Remoto LA.DI.RE. G. Savastano.
The didactic experiments summarized concern with:
measurement characterization of instruments and communication
systems, measurement devices for remote laboratory, basic electrical
measurements,
magnetic
measurements,
electromagnetic
interferences measurements, and signal processing for measurement
applications.
These experiments show the effectiveness of the realised
Remote Didactic Laboratory LA.DI.RE. G. Savastano in a
quite clear way.
The number of the experiments is continuously increasing
according to the contributions and the requirements of the users.
All the experiments are available on line at the web
address
http://www.misureremote.unisannio.it.

Most of them have been already exploited by students of

regular courses of the Italian universities.
REFERENCES
[1]

Ministero dellIstruzione, dellUniversit e della Ricerca, Piano

Operativo Nazionale 2000-2006, Avviso 68, Misura II. 2b, project
Laboratorio Didattico Remoto Distribuito su Rete Geografica.
[2] G. Andria, A. Baccigalupi, M. Borsic, P. Carbone, P. Daponte, C. De
Capua, A. Ferrero, D. Grimaldi, A. Liccardo, N. Locci, A. M. L.
Lanzolla, D. Macii, C. Muscas, L. Peretto, D. Petri, S. Rapuano, M.
Riccio, S. Salicone, F. Stefani, Remote Didactic Laboratory G.
Savastano: the Italian Experience for the E-learning at the Technical
Universities in the Field of the Electrical and Electronic Measurements,
Architecture and Delivered Services, Proc. of IEEE Instrumentation
and Measurement Technology Conference IMTC 2006, Sorrento, Italy,
24-27 April 2006.
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[4] http://www.misureremote.unisannio.it
[5] Y. Neuvo, Cellular phones as embedded systems, Proc. IEEE
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[6] Bluetooth core specification v1.2, https://www.bluetooth.org/spec.
[7] P. McDermott-Wells, What is Bluetooth?, IEEE Potentials, Vol. 23,
No. 5, Dec. 2004-Jan. 2005, pp. 3335.
[8] ISO ENV 13005:1999, Guide to Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement.
[9] M. L. Halstrom, W. J. Tompkins, Digital filters for real-time ECG signal
processing using microprocessors, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical
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[10] CISPR 16, Specification for radio interference measuring apparatus and
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[11] CEI EN 61800-3, Adjustable speed electrical power drive systems. Part 3: EMC
product standard including specific test methods, 1996.

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