The design and development of a Web-based data acquisition system

With the growth of the Internet, an interesting possibility is that of performing research, development, and collaborative experimentation unlimited by physical location. The focus of this paper is on the development of an educational tool, based on freeware, for the introduction of various Web-related aspects of remote instrumentation. An important ingredient of the system is a mechanism for handling multiple clients through a scheduling strategy that uses semaphores. Other features include provisions for multiple-instrument access and output of the data acquired in textual and graphical forms. The approach is cost-effective, and the solution is suitable for a variety of platforms. Experiments using two instruments, namely a digital multimeter and a thermocouple unit, are reported.