A remote lab for control of physical processes

Automatic control is one of the technical domains in which new technologies and tools for distance learning have often been applied. Remote user interaction with online experiments is one of the hottest topics today in distributed computing, web applications, and distance learning. In this paper, a remote laboratory named "Automatic Control Telelab" developed at University of Siena is described. The main target of this laboratory is to allow students to easily interact with a set of physical processes through the internet. Students will be able to run experiments, change control parameters, and analyze the results remotely. Such a tool is currently used in control systems courses by several institutions around the world.