Development of a Web-Based

Educational Interface Using

MATLAB Builder NE With Web
Figure for Digital Modulation
Techniques
CUNEYT BAYILMIS
Department of Electronics and Computer Education, University of Sakarya, 54187 Sakarya, Turkey

Received 14 June 2009; accepted 1 February 2010

ABSTRACT: Web-based educational interfaces are becoming more and more popular in engineering education.
It is an extremely easy, fast, and economic way of training and learning. In this work, a web-based educational
interface using MATLAB builder NE with Web Figure has been developed. It aims at improving the students’
understanding of digital modulation techniques employed in the communication systems course. Especially, use
of the Web Figure provides a much more comprehensible way to convey the related modulation techniques through
graphical presentations with theoretical details when required. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng
Educ; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.20427

Keywords: web-based educational interface; MATLAB builder NE; Web Figure; digital modulation techniques

INTRODUCTION LAB web server followed by the MATLAB 2008 version. More
examples of such related works in the literature can be found.
Nowadays, web-based educational environments such as inter- Most of the web-based applications (interfaces, virtual and
faces, virtual and remote laboratories, etc. are widespread used remote laboratories, etc.) realized using special software such as
in engineering education due to an extremely easy, fast, and effi- JAVA, C#, LabVIEW need downloading and installing some spe-
cient way of training and learning. Users/remote students can easily cial programs. Using them introduces several disadvantages such
access a web-based educational environment over the Internet. as extra workload and slow response times. On the other hand, soft-
There are many developed web-based educational environ- ware using the server technology does not require downloading and
ments using different platforms such as Java, C++, C#, MATLAB, installation of any programs.
LabVIEW in literature. Ref. [1] deals with the current trends Compared to other software, MATLAB presents a lot of
and key issues in virtual laboratories in fundamental engineering additional features such as large library, analysis tools, pow-
education. Ref. [2] introduces a dynamic collaborative e-learning erful numeric computation capability, and visualization. Also,
system developed using Java. Ref. [3] presents an educational tool MATLAB enables supporting the server technology for applica-
named Visual LinProg realized using Java in order to solve linear tions with its web server toolbox. But, MATLAB builder NE has
problems. Especially, there are many remote and virtual labora- replaced the MATLAB web server [7].
tory applications on control systems (robot, motor control, etc.) in The main objective of this presented work is to design and
literature [4–6]. Ref. [7] describes a system that is implemented implement a web-based educational environment using MATLAB
remote laboratory experiments for DC motor control over Internet. builder NE with Web Figure for engineering education. It eases
It use MATLAB web server to send/receive data or its visualization. learning of digital modulation techniques in the communication
Similarly, Ref. [8] introduces a web-based engineering numerical systems course. An important property of the developed web-based
software developed using MATLAB web server for linear algebra educational interface can run with standard server services without
problems. On the other hand, MATLAB builder NE replaces MAT- needing any other software on server. Users/students can easily
access a web-based educational environment using only a web
Correspondence to C. Bayilmis ([email protected]). browser through a device such as PC, laptop, PDA, or mobile
© 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. phone connected to the Internet. In addition, employing the .Net

1
2 BAYILMIS

Figure 1 The developed system architecture. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
www.interscience.wiley.com.]

technology, MATLAB builder NE with Web Figure provides a DESIGN STAGES OF THE WEB-BASED EDUCATIONAL
highly flexible environment and visualization means. INTERFACE
Rest of the paper is organized as follows. The proposed sys-
tem architecture is introduced in second section. Third section In the development of the web-based educational interface, the
deals with the design stages of the developed web-based educa- MATLAB builder NE with Web Figure [9], ASP.NET as .NET
tional interface using the .Net technology and MATLAB builder technology (www.asp.net) and Microsoft Visual Web Developer
NE with Web Figure. In fourth section, the developed web-based [10] have been employed. In this section, design stages of the
educational interface for learning digital modulation techniques is web-based educational interface are presented step-by-step.
introduced. Fifth section presents conclusions of the realized study. The MATLAB builder NE is an additional product of MAT-
LAB compiler. It enables .Net programmers using CLS-compliant
languages such as C#, VB.Net, and C++ to access MATLAB
functions. It basically converts the .Net codes to the MATLAB
THE DEVELOPED SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
functions [9]. MATLAB builder NE enables data convert, data
sort, and array shape using MWArray.dll file. This file must be
Figure 1 shows the proposed system architecture comprised of two
added to the application as reference in order to convert from used
layers namely a server layer and a client layer.
data and array to MATLAB data and vice versa [9,11].
The Web Figure feature in MATLAB builder NE allows illus-
• The Server Layer: It takes data packets through a web browser
over Internet and processes them for analysis, calculation, and trating MATLAB figures in web page and making visual processes
visualization using MATLAB. An important note is that MAT- (3-D, zoom, etc.) on figures. Thus, user can easily realize visual
LAB is not required to have set up on the server, where the applications using only web browser over Internet without needing
developed web-based educational interface using MATLAB MATLAB or other programs [9,11].
builder NE and .NET technology is merely enough. Then, the The process of creating .Net component with MATLAB
Server sends to remote users (client layer) the processed data builder NE is presented in Figure 3. To constitute the .Net compo-
via web browser over Internet. nent with the .dll extension, a MATLAB function within the m.file
• The Client Layer: All the remote users can access to the server is defined. In order to utilize the Web Figure feature, figure must
with only web browser without downloading and installation of
be also defined in the MATLAB function. As seen in Figure 3,
any programs. Therefore, users only need the means connected
to Internet such as pc, laptop, PDA. They take processed data
firstly the m.file is composed and then run in the deployment tool
and visualization data utilizing MATLAB builder NE from the for compile process. Thus, a new project is constituted and the
server. m.file is added to the class in the project. Finally the project is
compiled [9,11].
The proposed system architecture’s simplified flow chart is Figure 4 shows the process of using of created .Net compo-
outlined in Figure 2. nent and the Web Figure control tool. The Web Figure control tool

Figure 2 Flowchart of the proposed system architecture.

 WEB-BASED EDUCATIONAL INTERFACE 3

Figure 3 The process of creating .Net component with MATLAB builder NE. [Color figure can be viewed in the online
issue, which is available at www.interscience.wiley.com.]

Figure 4 The process of using of created .Net component and Web Figure control tool. [Color figure can be viewed in
the online issue, which is available at www.interscience.wiley.com.]
4 BAYILMIS

Figure 5 The composed codes for using the created .Net component and Web Figure control tool. [Color figure can be
viewed in the online issue, which is available at www.interscience.wiley.com.]

Figure 6 Use of the designed web-based educational interface for learning the ASK. [Color figure can be viewed in the
online issue, which is available at www.interscience.wiley.com.]
 WEB-BASED EDUCATIONAL INTERFACE 5

Figure 7 Showing the details of the ASK modulation scheme. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is
available at www.interscience.wiley.com.]

Figure 8 The zoom property of the Web Figure. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
www.interscience.wiley.com.]
6 BAYILMIS

Figure 9 Use of the designed web-based educational interface for learning the 8PSK. [Color figure can be viewed in
the online issue, which is available at www.interscience.wiley.com.]

is added to the toolbox of the web developer program which is In addition, the Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) is selected as the
used for designing web-based interfaces. type of digital modulation technique as an example. Generally, in
Figure 5 illustrates the employed Microsoft Visual Web the ASK scheme there is a carrier signal with a constant amplitude,
Developer in order to design the web page. It is a set of free- frequency, and phase for each digital signal “1” while no signal
ware integrated development environments (IDE) developed by for each digital signal “0.” Also, the ASK is called On-Off Keying
Microsoft [10]. As seen from the figure, codes are composed in (OOK) digital modulation technique. In the developed educational
the code panel [11]. interface when the cursor is over the graphic area, the properties
of MATLAB Web Figure such as 3-D view, zoom, and movement
on graphic is made available. For example, Figure 8 shows the use
of zoom property on the example modulated signal graph. Users
EXAMPLE APPLICATIONS OF THE DEVELOPED may zoom in and/or out to easily analyze the graphics.
WEB-BASED EDUCATIONAL INTERFACE The modulated signal examples of different modulation tech-
niques by using the developed web-based educational interface
In this section, the web-based educational interface for learn- can be increased. For instance, the modulated signal according to
ing digital modulation techniques in the communication systems 8PSK digital modulation technique and is shown in Figure 9. The
course is presented through two application examples. The digital 8PSK digital modulation technique is derived from PSK, where
modulation codes utilized in this study are obtained and derived each transmitted symbol is expressed with 3 bits.
from Refs. [12–14].
Figure 6 shows the use of the developed web-based edu-
cational interface for digital modulation techniques. Generally, it
graphically shows the modulated signal depending on the selected CONCLUSIONS
modulation type and given digital input. The wanted digital modu-
lation types such as ASK, BPSK, QPSK is selected from the Select This paper presents a developed web-based educational interface
Modulation area in the web interface. The details of the selected built using the MATLAB builder NE with Web Figure and .Net
modulation (Fig. 7) can be seen in the message box below the Select technology as well as its design stages. It enables the easy analysis
Modulation area. Similarly, digital information to be modulated is of the digital modulation techniques taught in the communication
inserted to the Digital Input area. The Random button creates, if system courses by means of graphical presentations. An important
required by the user, a random digital input to be modulated. feature of the developed web-based educational interface is that
Two graphics are seen in Figure 6. The first one is the digital the users can access to the designed tool using only a web browser
input to be modulated. The other is the modulated signal obtained. without the needing any other program. In addition, employing the
 WEB-BASED EDUCATIONAL INTERFACE 7

.Net technology together with the MATLAB builder NE with Web [4] E. Granado, W. Colmenares, M. Strefezza, and A. Alonso, A web-
Figure provides a highly comprehensible, flexible, and visual way based virtual laboratory for teaching automatic control, Comput Appl
of learning the modulation schemes. Especially usage the Web Fig- Eng Educ 15 (2007), 192–197.
ure enables 3-dimensional view, zoom, and movement functions to [5] C. S. Tzafestas, N. Palaiologou, and M. Alifragis, Virtual and
remote robotic laboratory: Comparative experimental evaluation,
examine the modulated signals. Considering the properties of the
IEEE Trans Educ 49 (2006), 360–369.
MATLAB Web Figure, the work also presents the idea that many
[6] K. Yeung and J. Huang, Development of a remote access labora-
other applications can be similarly developed as an engineering tory: A dc motor control experiment, Comp Ind 52 (2003), 305–
educational tool. 311.
[7] E. Irmak, R. Bayindir, I. Colak, and M. Sosyal, A remote labo-
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Appl Eng Educ (2009), Available online in Wiley InterScience, DOI:
10.1002/cae.20361.
The author would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers [8] A. S. Kim, C. Park, and S. Park, Development of web-based
for their invaluable comments and suggestions. Also, the author engineering numerical software (WENS) using MATLAB: Appli-
would like to thank Prof. Dr. Ismail Erturk for his contribution. cations to linear algebra, Comput Appl Eng Educ 11 (2003), 67–
74.
[9] Matlab Builder NE 3 User’s Guide, The Mathworks Inc., Ekim 2008.
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BIOGRAPHY

Cuneyt Bayilmis was born in Turkey in 1979.

He graduated from Department of Electronics
and Computer Education of Sakarya University in
2001. He received the MSc degree from Sakarya
University, Turkey, in 2001 and PhD degree in
Kocaeli University, Turkey in 2006. He currently
works as an assistant professor at Sakarya Uni-
versity, Turkey. Currently, he works as a postdoc
researcher at the University of Maryland Baltimore
County, US. His research interests are microcon-
trollers, CAN, WLAN, wireless internetworking, wireless sensor networks,
and web-based applications.