Challenges in Remote Laboratory Sustainability

Remote experimentation facilities have been accessible from the Internet for more than a decade. However, sustainability of such services is not adequately ensured in many academic institutions. The major challenge lies in moving from a single research setup available occasionally to a professional remote laboratory infrastructure with many setups accessible worldwide and 24/7. Not only are the technical aspects demanding but also the usability of the solutions and the support of the customers are to be considered. On the technical side the solution should be robust to students and external malicious attack. It should be fully autonomous and capable of self-diagnosing. In case of problems it should be able to set itself back to a known stable state and report problem to the administrator. On the educational side, the learning environment should be reworked to consider the drawback inherent to the distance to make the student interaction with the distant system as close as possible as the actual work on the real equipment and enable collaborative work.