本文結合教材(Content)、通訊(Communication)、電腦(Computer)與控制(Control)等4C的技術領域，設計遠端自動控制實驗網路教學平台，以及遠端監控系統，並將能力本位教學原理應用於此教學架構。此遠端自動控制系統提供之教學平台，讓學生利用網路即能夠遠端監控實驗室的設備，可應用在大專院校的控制實驗課程，以實施專業技術實習之網路教學模式。透過本系統學生不需要再學習或書寫任何網路程式，即可操控遠端控制伺服器驅動實驗室設備，並透過即時視訊，隨時監控掌握實驗室設備之動作及狀態。本文提出並實際落實PLC與PID控制的網路教學系統，所得結果顯示本系統的執行成效良好。為評估教學成效，進行實驗教學，探討不同的教學方法和不同程度的學生對遠端控制實習學習成就的影響，結果顯示這種透過網路的自動控制實驗設計與利用實體實驗室實習的效果相當，此遠端控制之網路教學模式應可擴展至其他專業科目或實習的教學，以提昇技職教育之教學方法及教學效果。

This dissertation integrates the 4Cs—content, communication, computer and control—in designing remote learning systems and visual monitoring systems coupled with techniques from competence-based education. Our proposed remote control system provides an online environment that students can access anytime, anywhere to control or observe equipment in the laboratory. Moreover, our remote automatic control platform can be implemented in college-level automatic control courses for students and instructors to carry out online laboratory courses. Here, we demonstrated two successful remote learning systems for PLC and PID control, respectively, that show promising results. To evaluate the efficacy of our system, we conducted an experimental study and analyzed the outcomes of different instructional methods. We investigated the effect of students’ prior academic performance on their academic achievements in the automatic control course. The results show that our system is as effective as the traditional instructional method. We hope that our findings will help improve the teaching and learning effectiveness of vocational education methods.

Table of Contents  
             　
Table of Contents I
List of Figures IV
List of Tables VI

Chapter 1  Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation 1
1.2 Purposes 2
Chapter 2  Related Works 6
2.1 The Strategies and Advantages of E-learning 6
2.2 Remote Control System and Its Advantages 10
2.3 Competence-based Education 11
2.4 Visual Monitoring System 13
2.5 Our Experiences on Remote Control Laboratory 14
2.5.1 Power Monitoring System 14
2.5.2 Remote Control Lab Using PDA 18
2.5.3 PLC Control Lab Using GSM System 21
Chapter 3  The Design of a Remote Learning System and a Visual Monitoring System 27
3.1 The Design of a Remote Learning System (RLS) 27
3.1.1 Overview 27
3.1.2 System Architecture 29
3.1.3 Class Management Center (CMC) 34
3.1.4 The Design of a Remote Desktop Program 37
3.2 The Design of a Visual Monitoring System (VMS) 39
3.2.1 Overview 39
3.2.1.1 Server End 40
3.2.1.2 Client End 42
3.2.2 A Real-time Moving Object Segmentation Scheme	42
3.2.2.1 Seed Determination and Region Growing	44
3.2.2.2 Region-based Change Detection 47
3.2.3 Implementation and Results 48
Chapter 4  A Web-based Virtual Laboratory for PLC 51
4.1 Overview 51
4.2 System Architecture 53
4.3 PLC Program Design 54   
4.4 PLC Remote Execution 56
4.5 On-line PLC Virtual Lab 57
Chapter 5  A Remote Automatic Control Laboratory for PID Control	60   
5.1 PID Controller Laboratory Course: the Traditional  Method	60
5.1.1 Theory	 60
5.1.2 Laboratory Equipment 62
5.1.3 Experiment 62
5.2 Using the RLS for On-line Practice 64
5.2.1 On-line Materials 64      
5.2.2 Remote Execution 64
5.2.3 Execution Results 65
5.3 Competence-based Networked Learning System 66
5.4 Analysis of the Instruction Outcomes 69
5.4.1 Experiment Design 69
5.4.2 Research Hypotheses 71
5.4.3 Results 72
Chapter 6  Conclusion and Future Works 77

References 79
Appendix A. Publication List   84
List of Figures

Figure 2-1. Architecture of the power monitoring system 16
Figure 2-2. The operating interface of the power monitoring system	17
Figure 2-3. Hardware architecture of the system 19
Figure 2-4. Server-end interface of the thermostat control	20
Figure 2-5. Client-end interface 20
Figure 2-6. PLC control interface 20
Figure 2-7. System architecture of the M-PLC control lab using the GSM system 23
Figure 2-8. The control and monitoring interface on the server end 24
Figure 2-9. Sending SMS message to PLC 25
Figure 2-10. Report from PLC 26
Figure 3-1. System architecture of the RLS 30
Figure 3-2. Server/client control flow of the RLS 33
Figure 3-3. Control flow of the CMC 35
Figure 3-4. Homepage of the CMC 36
Figure 3-5. Student booking records 36
Figure 3-6. Pseudo-code for picture encoding/decoding 38
Figure 3-7. Camera control unit 41
Figure 3-8. Encoding unit 42
Figure 3-9. Object segmentation and application 43
Figure 3-10. Flow chart of object segmentation 43
Figure 3-11. Pseudo-code for Seed Determination and Region Growing 46
Figure 3-12. Network packets transmission process for real-time Monitoring 50
Figure 4-1. Flow chart for PLC design/execution 55
Figure 4-2. The course materials of the PLC virtual lab 57
Figure 4-3. The facility of the elevator simulation 58
Figure 4-4. PLC program design interface 58
Figure 4-5. PLC execution and video display 59
Figure 4-6. Remote control interface developed using VB 59
Figure 5-1. Block diagram of a closed loop PID control system; R(S): reference input, E(S): error signal, C(S): controlled variable, and Gc(S): transfer function 61
Figure 5-2. Feedback 33-100 mechanical unit for PID control 62
Figure 5-3. Block diagram of the DC motor position control system 63
Figure 5-4. Real-time response of the PID position Controller (Kp= 65, Ki= 0 and Kd= 0) 63
Figure 5-5. Flow chart of PID controller design/execution 65
Figure 5-6. Response interface of PID position control for the RLS (Kp= 65, Ki= 0 and Kd= 0) 66
Figure 5-7. Learning flow chart of CBE+RLS 68
 
List of Tables

Table 3-1. Notations 44
Table 5-1. Descriptive statistics 72
Table 5-2. Levene's test of equality of error variances 73
Table 5-3. Summary of two-way ANOVA results 73
Table 5-4. Multiple comparisons 75

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