Design of online Digital Electronics laboratories based on the NI ELVIS II platform

Abstract

The Makerere University iLabs Project Team (iLabs@MAK) has designed and implemented online laboratories based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) iLabs Shared Architecture (ISA), a scalable model that provides highly reliable generic experiment services independent of the experiment domains. This paper presents the design process of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) FPGA-based Digital Electronics laboratory with the 3-bit Full Adder, 4-Bit Bidirectional Universal Shift Register and Synchronous Up/Down Counter experiments developed by undergraduate student researchers using the Digital Electronics FPGA add-on board for the National Instruments Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Suite (NI ELVIS II™) platform. Herein described are the experiments and the process of integration of Data Acquisition, Monitoring and Control capabilities using the NI CompactRIO to the initial FPGA Digital Electronics laboratory.