Abstract
Bioreactors are designed to support highly controlled environments for growth of tissues, cell cultures or microbial cultures. A variety of bioreactors are commercially available, often including sophisticated software to enhance the functionality of the bioreactor. However, experiments that the bioreactor hardware can support, but that were not envisioned during the software design cannot be performed without developing custom software. In addition, support for third party or custom designed auxiliary hardware is often sparse or absent. This work presents flexible open source freeware for the control of bioreactors of the Bioflo product family. The functionality of the software includes setpoint control, data logging, and protocol execution. Auxiliary hardware can be easily integrated and controlled through an integrated plugin interface without altering existing software. Simple experimental protocols can be entered as a CSV scripting file, and a Python-based protocol execution model is included for more demanding conditional experimental control. The software was designed to be a more flexible and free open source alternative to the commercially available solution. The source code and various auxiliary hardware plugins are publicly available for download from https://github.com/LibourelLab/BiofloSoftware. In addition to the source code, the software was compiled and packaged as a self-installing file for 32 and 64 bit windows operating systems. The compiled software will be able to control a Bioflo system, and will not require the installation of LabVIEW.
Highlights
Bioreactor systems are complex devices designed for the sophisticated control of culture environments
To reduce the learning curve associated with program development using text based languages, a visual programming environment named LabVIEW emerged as a development environment of choice for bioprocess control and automation [4]
The vessels hardware and sensors interface with stacked control modules that communicate with a Primary Control Unit (PCU) via a daisy chained RS-485 control bus
Summary
Bioreactor systems are complex devices designed for the sophisticated control of culture environments. As a result LabVIEW has been used to control many bioreactor systems including: fed-batch [6], hollow-fiber [7], air lift [8], and catalytic packed-bed [9] reactors While many of these systems are composed of an assortment of hardware [10], some researchers were able to utilize the hardware capabilities of commercial bioreactor systems to develop custom control systems with the addition of auxiliary hardware [11]. Most of the potential complications can be avoided by implementing existing software architectural concepts These include maintaining scalability [12], and proper decoupling of asynchronous processes. Examples of QSM-PC implementation are the decoupling of data acquisition from data analysis [15], hardware control from hardware communication [16], and user interactions from code execution [13]
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