VirtLAB: A Low-Cost Platform for Electronics Lab Experiments†

Abstract

The recent SARS-CoV2 pandemic has put a great challenge on university courses. Electronics teaching requires real laboratory experiences for students, which cannot be realized if access to physical infrastructures is prohibited. A possible solution would be to distribute to students, at home, electronics equipment suitable for laboratory experiments, but no reasonable product is currently available off-the-shelf. In this paper, the design and development of a very-low-cost experimental board tailored to these needs is presented. It contains both programmable prototyping circuitry based on a microcontroller and an FPGA and a set of measurement instruments, similar to the ones found on a typical lab desk, such as a digital storage oscilloscope, multimeter, analog signal generator, logic state analyzer and digital pattern generator. A first board, suitable for analog and digital electronics experiments, has been designed and manufactured, and is described in this paper. The board has been successfully used in master’s degrees and PhD courses.