Rapid design of simple remote laboratory using Matlab

This paper shows how it is possible to build a simple remote laboratory using just one application - Matlab. Matlab is a well-known tool in engineering education and praxis that together with Simulink serves for calculation and simulation of signal responses and system behaviors. Matlab/Simulink includes a rich set of commands and many libraries of useful blocks that allow its users to compute results from many engineering areas. The latest versions of Matlab/Simulink have also strong support for data communication. In this paper specific commands and blocks of a Matlab/Simulink library have been used to establish a connection between client and server applications both based on Matlab. Thus together with the real equipment connected to the server side it is possible to build a simple remote laboratory. Its main advantage is that it doesn't need any other technology except of Matlab/Simulink that is familiar for both students and teachers. The design of a simple remote laboratory is demonstrated on the example of a thermo-optical system.