Industrial PC Based Data Acquisition and Processing System
Team Members: (from left to right)
Ramesh Narayan - Computer Engineer '05
Megan Bessick - Computer Science '05
Matt Sigg - Electrical Engineer '05
Pete Jankovsky - Electrical Engineer '05
Brett English - Electrical Engineer '05
Jim Roll - Computer Engineer '05
Dr. S. Vemuru - Faculty Advisor
Mr. L. Murdock - Industry Advisor
Mr. R. Hulsey - Project Manager
Industry Connection:
Grob Systems, INC
Machine Tool Division
1070 Navajo Drive
Bluffton, Ohio 45817
Executive Summary
The goal of this project is to design a proprietary force monitoring and analytical measuring system. The system will be used as a quality assurance device in conjunction with Grob's machining and assembly equipment. The Grob Analysis application will allow Grob employees to develop a customized runtime application that obtains data from sensors connected to production machinery. The applications written with this tool will help Grob customers detect defective parts earlier in the manufacturing process which will assist in saving the company time and money.The final prototype, as designed by the team, centers on a Beckhoff model C3340 industrial PC. The system has a 15 inch LCD display, programmable buttons, an Intel Celeron 2 GHz processor, 512MB memory, and 40GB hard drive. The system captures analog signals through a National Instruments PCI-6221 data acquisition card, which is capable of 16-bit resolution and 250,000 samples per second.
The software applications were written in the Visual Basic .NET programming language. The hardware is interfaced through National Instruments (NI) Measurement Studio, which creates VB.NET routines to call NI drivers. The software exists as two applications: the integrated development environment (IDE), and the runtime environment. The IDE component is operated on Grob's development PC and used to program the functionality specific to each of Grob's products. The runtime application is used on the industrial PC that is delivered to Grob's customers. It performs data capturing and executes the sequences setup during the development stage in the IDE.
Given the complexity of the project, time table, and programming resources, not all components of the IDE application have been fully implemented. With a strong structural outlining and well commented code, the completion of these missing components should be attainable given additional time and resources.