Establishment and Application of MCU Virtual Simulation

Experimental Environment Based on Cloud Server

Jiantao Chen

, Mingfei Qu, Lirong Zhang, and Yongqi Liu

Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Polytechnic, Beijing, China

Keywords: Cloud Server, MCU, Simulation Experiment, Online Education.

Abstract: With the influence of COVID-19, many universities require that the teaching and learning process should be

switched promptly between online mode and offline mode. That brings challenges for teachers to teach

MCU related courses requiring the integration of theory and practice. To satisfy the requirements of MCU

related courses, the MCU virtual simulation experimental environment is proposed and established with the

cloud server and Microsoft’s Remote Desktop software, Proteus software, STM32CubeMX software and

Keil MDK software. The experimental environment allows many students to log in and do MCU virtual

simulation experiments from anywhere using their devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers, laptop

computers and desktop computers. The proposed environment was practically established and used in online

MCU courses. And the practice has proved that the experimental environment runs well and meets the

requirements of online MCU courses. The proposed experimental environment is easy to establish and could

provide a good reference for other online courses.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1167-4740

This work is supported by BPI’s funds.

1 INTRODUCTION

In recent years, due to the impact of the new crown

epidemic (COVID-19), courses in many universities

or colleges should be taught online from time to

time. The online teaching brings challenges for

teachers to teach the courses that require practical

operation. How to build suitable experimental

environments for students in online courses? This is

a practical problem that many teachers have

encountered in online teaching process.

The fast development and application of cloud

computing technology in recent years provide new

approaches for online teaching. There are some

researches about teaching and learning systems

based on cloud computing services. Literatures

(Faruk 2015, Christopher 2013, Omar 2021) have

proposed a variety of education system architectures

based on cloud computing services. These studies

provide good references for the construction of

online teaching and learning environment.

In practical online teaching and learning, many

software applications can be used, such as Superstar

Learning Link, Rain Class (Wang 2021), Tencent

Meeting, Ding Talk etc. These software applications

often use cloud services, 4G/5G communications,

the Internet, Wi-Fi and other related technologies.

Based on these applications, students and teachers

can be connected through the Internet for teaching

and learning activities. These applications generally

satisfy the requirements of teaching and learning

about theoretical parts in many courses.

And for the practical operation parts in many

courses, these applications do not provide suitable

approach. When using those applications, to fulfil

practical teaching content, many teachers provided

the learning videos about practical operation

processes, or demonstrated the operational processes

by live webcast. In those cases, most students who

didn’t have practical equipment could not do

practical operation. The teaching and learning

effects were poor.

In order to improve online teaching and learning

effects, some enterprises and universities have put

forward several virtual simulation experiment

platforms applying virtual reality, augmented reality

and other related technologies (Wang 2019, Wang

2019, Cheng 2020, Wang 2022).

434

Chen, J., Qu, M., Zhang, L. and Liu, Y.

Establishment and Application of MCU Virtual Simulation Experimental Environment Based on Cloud Server.

DOI: 10.5220/0011913400003613

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on New Media Development and Modernized Education (NMDME 2022), pages 434-439

ISBN: 978-989-758-630-9

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

These virtual simulation experiment platforms

provide better practical operation and training

environments, and are suitable for online or offline

teaching and learning. However, the constructions of

these virtual simulation experiment platforms are

relatively complex and expensive, and often require

long construction periods.

To quickly meet the demands of online teaching

and learning, and aiming at the requirements of

MCU courses, a virtual simulation experimental

environment is proposed and established based on

cloud server. And the Internet and several software

applications are used in the environment.

2 THE BASIC PLATFORM OF

MCU VIRTUAL SIMULATION

EXPERIMENTAL

EVIRONMENT

The cloud server is the core of the platform, and

other four different terminal devices connect to the

cloud server through the Internet, as shown in Figure

The cloud server is a kind of reliable and

scalable cloud computing service, and can provide

multiple functions that the physical server has (Shi

2020). The cloud server has virtualized CPUs,

virtualized memories, virtualized hard drives, the

Internet network interfaces and related resources.

The user can select the proper specifications of a

cloud server and install Windows Server operating

system in the cloud server. The Windows Server

operating system supports remote desktop access

function. And other devices can remotely log in to

the cloud server using RD Client software that will

be introduced in the following part.

The laptop computer with Windows operating

system can be connected to the Internet through Wi-

Fi, or wired Ethernet cable, or the wireless Internet

card and many other methods. It has keyboard and

touch pad. And a mouse is useful for students to

draw MCU system diagrams. The Windows

operating system that supports RD Client software

should be installed in the laptop.

The desktop computer can be connected to the

Internet through wired Ethernet cable, or Wi-Fi, or

the wireless Internet card and many other methods.

The Windows operating system that supports RD

Client software should be installed in the desktop

computer.

The tablet computer has been widely used in

recent years. The tablet computer usually accesses

the Internet through Wi-Fi. And most of tablet

computers have the touch screens, but don’t have

mouse and keyboard. However, many tablet

computers support mouse and keyboard with

Laptop

Computer

Desktop

Computer

Tablet Computer

with Mouse and

Keyboard

Smartphone

with Mouse and

Keyboard

Internet

Connection

Bluetooth

RD Client RD Client

Cloud Server

with Windows OS

Internet

Connection

Internet

Connection

Internet

Connection

Bluetooth

Figure 1: General view of basic platform of the virtual simulation experimental environment

Establishment and Application of MCU Virtual Simulation Experimental Environment Based on Cloud Server

435

Bluetooth communication function. In order to

better meet the practical operation, the tablet

computer is equipped with mouse and keyboard with

Bluetooth. The mouse and keyboard are connected

to the tablet through Bluetooth communication. In

this way, the tablet computer has two human-

computer interaction modes. One is to use the touch

screen and the other is to use the mouse and

keyboard.

The smartphone is frequently-used mobile

terminal device. The students who do not have

laptop computer, desktop computer and tablet

computer can only use smartphones in the online

class. The most of smartphones do not have mouse

and keyboard, but support mouse and keyboard with

Bluetooth communication. Consequently, it is

possible to configure a smartphone with mouse and

keyboard with Bluetooth communication. The

mouse and keyboard can be connected to the

smartphone through Bluetooth communication. And

then the smartphone has two huma-computer

interaction modes. One is to use the touch screen

and the other is to use the mouse and keyboard.

The above four terminal devices communicate

with the cloud server through the Internet. And to

remotely log in to the cloud server, the proper RD

Client software application should be installed in

each terminal device.

RD Client software application was developed

by Microsoft company. It uses remote desktop

technology. The remote desktop technology adopts

network communication technology and can enable

the local computer to log in to the remote computer.

And after successful login the user can operate the

remote computer in the local computer and the

image of the remote computer’s desktop is real time

displayed in the local computer’s desktop (Li 2022,

Wu 2020). There are different versions of RD Client

software application that can run in multiple

operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, iOS,

Android and so on (Hao 2022). The proper versions

of RD Client software application should be selected

and installed in above four terminal devices. And

then students can use RD Client software in their

devices to remotely log in to the cloud server and

operate it.

The core of the basic platform is the cloud

server. And the cloud server has strong elastic

computing and processing capacity and network

connectivity, and allows many devices to log in at

the same time. And meanwhile it is quick to increase

or reduce the virtualized resources of the cloud

server, such as the number of virtualized CPUs, the

capacity of virtualized memory, and the capacity of

virtualized hard disk according to the actual

demands.

3 DEPLOYMENT AND

CONFIGURATION OF

SOFTWARE TOOLS

The content of MCU related courses usually include

the design and drawing of schematic diagrams, the

program design, coding and debugging, the

comprehensive debugging of hardware and software.

Based on the above platform, three software

applications, Proteus, STM32CubeMX and Keil

MDK are installed and deployed in the experimental

environment.

The Proteus software is used to design, draw,

simulate the MCU system circuits (Meng 2021,

Chen 2009, Tan 2018). And the version of Proteus 8

supports simulation of the series of STM32F1 and

STM32F4 MCUs, and is installed in the cloud

server.

There are several MCU program software

applications. Keil MDK is one of MCU program

software application and is generally used in lots of

enterprises and universities (Lian 2017). And Keil

MDK is installed in the cloud server.

In recent years, STM32CubeMX software has

been launched. The software provides the graphical

approach to configure the series of STM32 MCUs,

and can automatically generate configuration

program codes that can be directly used in Keil

MDK software (Chen 2019). With the help of

STM32CubeMX, the program development of

STM32 MCUs is becoming easer for students to

learn. The STM32CubeMX software is installed in

the cloud server.

The installation and deployment of the above

three software applications in the cloud server are

similar with that in the physical computer, and are

not introduced here.

After Proteus, STM32CubeMX and Keil MDK

are successfully installed in the cloud server, and

students can remotely log in to the cloud server in

local devices using RD Client software, and use

three software applications to complete simulation

experiments in MCU courses.

To permit many students to log in at same time,

the multi-user login configuration of the Windows

Server operating system should be set and the login

username and password for each student should be

created.

NMDME 2022 - The International Conference on New Media Development and Modernized Education

436

When using three software applications to do

MCU system experiment, the main process is as the

following.

1) Design and draw simulation schematic

diagram of MCU system in Proteus software.

2) Configurate the STM32 MCU using

STM32CubeMX software through the graphical

approach.

3) Automatically generate the project codes that

Keil MDK supported in Proteus.

4) Open the project codes in Keil MDK, and

edit, debug codes, and create the Hex file.

5) Add the Hex file to simulated MCU in

Proteus and run the simulation schematic diagram in

Proteus.

6) According to run results to check whether the

design is correct and then modification of codes or

diagram might be needed.

4 THE PRACTICAL

APPLICATION OF THE

SIMULATION EXPERIMENTAL

ENVIRONMENT

In online MCU courses the experimental

environment was established and used in practical

teaching and learning processes. In the practical

environment, the ECS (Elastic Compute Service)

from Alibaba Cloud was selected as the cloud

server, and its main resources are illustrated in the

following Table 1. In the Windows Server operating

system of the cloud server, the multi-user login

configuration was set and permitted. And then

multiple students could remotely log in to the cloud

server and do simulation experiments in online

MCU courses.

Table 1: Main configurations of the ECS instance.

Item Name Content

Location Bei

vCPU 4 cores

Memor

16GB

Architecture X86 computing

Categor

General

Operating System Windows Server 2019

stem Hardware Enhance SSD, 40GB

Network Bandwidth 5M

Network Confi

uration Internet Public IP

Proteus 8.0, STM32CubeMX 6.2 and Keil

MDK5 were installed in the cloud server, as

illustrated in the following Figure 2.

In practical online MCU courses there were

fourteen students. It is found that the terminal

devices all students used had diversity. The four

types of terminal devices were all included. And the

students installed

Figure 2: Software installed in Cloud Server

Figure 3: Tablet Computer used in online MCU course

Establishment and Application of MCU Virtual Simulation Experimental Environment Based on Cloud Server

437

Figure 4: Smartphone used in online MCU course

the proper RD Client software in their devices and

configured keyboard and mouse if needed. In the

Figure 3 the tablet computer the student used in

online MCU course is shown. In the Figure 4 the

smartphone the student used in online MCU course

is shown.

In practical online MCU courses, using the

environment and with STM32F103 as the core

MCU, the following experiments were fulfilled,

LED control, Key input, Digital tubes, Key detecting

with interrupt, LED delay control with timer,

USART communication and Motors control.

During classes, in one short time when multiple

students run the simulations, several processes of

Proteus software application were quit suddenly. By

testing it was found that the number of virtualized

CPU and the capacity of virtualized memory of the

cloud server were not enough. After increasing CPU

numbers and memory capacity the problem was

solved.

5 CONCLUSION

Under the influence of COVID-19, the demands of

online teaching and learning have soared. It is worth

to research and explore appropriate approaches for

online teaching and learning. To fast satisfy the

requirements of online MCU courses, the virtual

simulation experimental environment is built using

the cloud server, RD Client, Proteus,

STM32CubeMX and Keil MDK. The cloud server

with Windows Server operating system is the core,

and the RD Client and the Internet are the key. The

students in different geographical locations can

remotely log in to the cloud server in four different

types of terminal devices using RD Client and the

Internet, and operate Proteus, STM32CubeMX and

Keil MDK software applications to fulfil the MCU

related simulation experiments.

Based on the practical establishment and

application of the environment, it is proved that the

environment is easy to build and can stable run and

satisfy the main requirements of online MCU

courses. And the environment can provide a good

reference for other online courses.

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