A Laboratory Self-learning System Based On Embedded Platform

The open management of laboratory has become a trend. The open laboratory management systems at present are mostly designed based on the browser/server architecture. Because the computers are usually used as their hardware platforms, these open laboratory management systems have many disadvantages such as the requirement of larger geographical space, the high power consumption, being difficult to maintain. On the other hand, these open laboratory management systems at present mostly achieve the function of experiment booking, equipment management and laboratory management, but rarely achieve the function of guiding the students in doing the experiments independently.In order to solving above problems, this paper designed and developed a new laboratory management and self-learning system by using a embedded platform, the system based on embedded platform benefits from the advantages of small size, low power consumption, low cost which abandon the disadvantages of PC. In addition to realizing the functions of the user authentication, experiment management and so on which the traditional laboratory management system have, this software also provides explanations for the purpose of the experiment, the experimental contents, experimental steps, answers to common questions and other information. So it can guide the students in using the experimental equipments correctly, and then to carry out the experiments smoothly. The main contents of this paper are as follows:(1) The design and implementation of hardware platform. The main technical indicators of the hardware platform are small size, low power consumption, high cost-effective, using the touch screen for user's easy control, realize the identification by using RFID technology, equipped with audio module and USB interface as well as the network function. In order to meet the requirements of relevant indicators, this project adopts ARM9 kernel based S3C2440 as the main controller of the system, and designs the overall architecture by using the combination of core board and motherboard. Among them, the PCB of the core board adopts the six layers design, the core board includes the power supply module, embedded microprocessor, clock circuit, reset circuit, SDRAM and Nand Flash and JTAG debugging circuit; while the PCB of the motherboard adopts the two layers design, the motherboard includes the power supply module, LCD interface module, touch screen module, Ethernet module, audio processing circuit, USB interface module, UART interface module and the circuit for debugging. By analyzing the power supply voltage needed by the system, while synthetically considering various indicators to the power supply required by the digital circuit and analog circuit in the system, we finish the power supply modules of the core board and the motherboard based on LDO and DC-DC switching chip design.(2) The design and development of software system. Based on the Win CE6.0 operating system and SQLCE embedded database, we develop applications by using C# programming language in the Visual Studio integrated development environment. By finishing the user interface design, data management module design, communication & control module design and self-learning document, we realize a laboratory self-learning system which has the functions of user authentication, experiment booking and self-learning etc. Among them, the self-learning module covers the introduction of each part of the experiment, such as the experimental purpose, experimental content, experimental procedures, the use of equipment, the matters needing attention etc, so students can learn the related documents offered by the self-learning module and finish the experiment independently.