Portable data acquisition unit for process control and monitoring applications

Abstract

The contribution deals with portable data acquisition unit which was developed at our department. The device is designed with respect to possible battery operation which in conjunction with laptop computer enables process measurement in areas where power source is not available. Its hardware design is adopted to fulfill high reliability and immunity against industrial environment, high precision and compact dimensions. Communication using standard RS232 serial interface makes it fully platform independent and thus suitable for connecting with any system, not only personal computer. Device has implemented ASCII - based communication protocol provides very effective way to communicate with number of software environments which are used in process control and monitoring tasks. In order to improve development of new software applications with this device a support program libraries for Visual C++, Control Web and Matlab/Simulink was created. Developed program libraries and data acquisition device were verified by control of educational time-delay heating plant model which is used in Automatic Control theory lessons.