Can I access my own instrument from anywhere as websites?

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Can I access my own instrument from anywhere as websites?

Postby chaudhari.jayashri on Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:35 am

I have a electronuc instrument.
Here I explain about my product:
Its a valve control unit.Its a microcontroller based product.Assemmbly language programming is done here.
It has analog input through MS connectors.
It has MODBUS TCP/IP protocol implemented.
It has ethernet communication facility.
Can I access my own instrument from anywhere in the world as like websites? Whether it need to develop any website/web page? If yes then whether programme for it should be stored in that unit itself? What software techniques or languages are used?
Any other suggestions?Queries?
Plz give me ANS immidiately.
chaudhari.jayashri
 

Re: Can I access my own instrument from anywhere as websites?

Postby Tomi Engdahl on Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:02 pm

Can I access my own instrument from anywhere in the world as like websites?


It is technically possible to do that.

Whether it need to develop any website/web page? If yes then whether programme for it should be stored in that unit itself? What software techniques or languages are used?


Basically the normal approach to make a device world accessible like web sites is to put a web server inside the device.
So you put a web server software inside your device. Then you design web pages for that device.
Some of the web pages would be "dynamic" meaning that that they are generated "on the fly" containing the data from the device.

One proven way to experiment and do the things if your device has enough processing power for this:
Make the device run Linux operating system. Install Apache web server with needed support for suitable
scripting language (perl, PHP, shell scripts etc..). Design the pages what contains information
that does not change as normal HTML pages, and make some script that generates those pages
that have changing information on them. For controlling something (like device state, settings), define
suitable web forms to enter the control information and write scripts to handle the form that user sends.
Basically this is like that is done with any we site development nowadays.
The only thing that is different is that instead of taking and writing the data from SQL database or filesystem files
like normal web sites do, you need to make an interface the device data on the microcontroller.

If your device is nor capable of running Linux, Apache and the scripting languages I mentioned, then are also
many embedded web servers that runs on lower capacity hardware. The same things can be made with
them, but generally developing the dynamic web pages with them is much harder with them
(typically you need to program those with C or C++).

I have programmed web interfaces for embedded devices using both methods.
My experience has been that using the Linux, Apache and some scripting language approach is much easier
and quicker to make work. So much easier, that even if you need to go to a small embedded web server
route, building a system prototype with Apache and some scripting language usually makes sense
(you test things first, when you know what technically works and is good to use, you then rewrite
that known good web interface with C/C++).

You can find some useful information on controlling electronics through web at
http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/paral ... webcontrol
The examples are for PC parallel port controlling, but the same approach can be adapted for any other use.
Anyways my examples do the controlling through running one program, replacing that program that now accesses parallel port with some other software that does something else you could do practically everything you want.
Tomi Engdahl
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