This paper presents the development of a remote
experimentation for automatic control engineering education. By
using a smartphone application, students can interact with real
laboratory didactic equipment. Through a friendly graphical
user interface and information provided by built-in smartphone
sensors, students can modify the process parameters and verify in
real time what’s happening on the experimental setup. Mobile
device vibration technology is used to add haptic tactile feedback
to the application. This additional sense complements the visual
and hearing information the user usually acquires when
performing a practical experience. Therefore, students pay more
attention to the results achieved online. Taking advantage of
today’s smartphone technological features, the students feel
highly motivated to use this device to achieve improvements in
their learning process. To reach a great number of users, the
application runs across the most widely used mobile platforms.
All user lab activities are stored in a database for the teacher
later analysis. Likewise, students can store the resulted
experiments on their mobile device when finished in order to
make an off-line result analysis.