Data Acquisition Control Research Articles

Mini-EUSO data acquisition and control software

We present the data acquisition and control software for the operation of the Mini-Extreme Universe Space Observatory (EUSO), a space-based fluorescence telescope for the observation of extensive air showers and atmospheric phenomena. This framework has been extensively tested alongside the development of Mini-EUSO and was finalized ahead of the successful launch of the instrument to the ISS on August 22, 2019. The data acquisition, housekeeping, and subsystem control are achieved using custom-designed front-end electronics based on a Xilinx Zynq XC7Z030 chip interfaced with a PCIe/104 CPU module via the integrated Zynq processing system. The instrument control interface is handled using an object-oriented C++ design, which can be run both autonomously and interactively as required. Although developed for Mini-EUSO, the modular design of both the software and hardware can easily be scaled up to larger instrument designs and adapted to different subsystem and communication requirements. As such, this framework will also be used in the upgrade of the EUSO-TA instrument and potentially for the next EUSO-SPB2 NASA Balloon flight. The software and firmware presented are open source and released with detailed and integrated documentation.

Current State of DIII-D Plasma Control System

The DIII-D Plasma Control System (PCS) is a comprehensive software and hardware system used in real-time data acquisition and feedback control of numerous actuators on the DIII-D tokamak. It regulates many plasma characteristics including shape, position, divertor function, and core performance. The custom software developed at DIII-D provides an expandable platform from which new control algorithms can be incorporated. PCS has been expanding with the needs of the DIII-D research program, national, and international institutions that have adapted the PCS for use on their devices.The DIII-D PCS group in collaboration with many national and international groups have been instrumental in steadily improving the effectiveness and capability of the system. Enhancements on two key areas have been made: computer infrastructure upgrades and real time diagnostics control.

A Role-Based Access Control Model in Modbus SCADA Systems. A Centralized Model Approach.

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Supervisory Control systems and Data Acquisition (SCADA) networks implement industrial communication protocols to enable their operations. Modbus is an application protocol that allows communication between millions of automation devices. Unfortunately, Modbus lacks basic security mechanisms, and this leads to multiple vulnerabilities, due to both design and implementation. This issue enables certain types of attacks, for example, man in the middle attacks, eavesdropping attacks, and replay attack. The exploitation of such flaws may greatly influence companies and the general population, especially for attacks targeting critical infrastructural assets, such as power plants, water distribution and railway transportation systems. In order to provide security mechanisms to the protocol, the Modbus organization released security specifications, which provide robust protection through the blending of Transport Layer Security (TLS) with the traditional Modbus protocol. TLS will encapsulate Modbus packets to provide both authentication and message-integrity protection. The security features leverage X.509v3 digital certificates for authentication of the server and client. From the security specifications, this study addresses the security problems of the Modbus protocol, proposing a new secure version of a role-based access control model (RBAC), in order to authorize both the client on the server, as well as the Modbus frame. This model is divided into an authorization process via roles, which is inserted as an arbitrary extension in the certificate X.509v3 and the message authorization via unit id, a unique identifier used to authorize the Modbus frame. Our proposal is evaluated through two approaches: A security analysis and a performance analysis. The security analysis involves verifying the protocol’s resistance to different types of attacks, as well as that certain pillars of cybersecurity, such as integrity and confidentiality, are not compromised. Finally, our performance analysis involves deploying our design over a testnet built on GNS3. This testnet has been designed based on an industrial security standard, such as IEC-62443, which divides the industrial network into levels. Then both the client and the server are deployed over this network in order to verify the feasibility of the proposal. For this purpose, different latencies measurements in industrial environments are used as a benchmark, which are matched against the latencies in our proposal for different cipher suites.

A Portable Elbow Exoskeleton for Three Stages of Rehabilitation

Abstract Patients suffering from stroke need to undergo a standard and intensive rehabilitation therapy. The rehabilitation training consists of three sequential stages: the first stage is controlled joint movement under external actuator, the second stage deals with supporting the movements by providing assistive force, and the last stage provides variety and difficulty to exercises. Most of the exoskeletons developed so far for rehabilitation are restricted to a particular type of activity. Although a few exoskeletons incorporate different modes of rehabilitation, those are software controlled requiring sensory data acquisition and complex control architecture. To bridge this gap, a portable elbow exoskeleton has been developed for delivering three stages of rehabilitation in a single structure without affecting the range of motion and safety features. Use of electric motor and springs have been arranged in the actuation mechanism to minimize the energy consumption. The developed exoskeleton enhances torque to weight ratio compared to existing models, and all the three modes of rehabilitation have been controlled using a single motor.

Integrated synchronous data acquisition subsystem for high‐speed GPR system

In this study, an integrated synchronous data acquisition subsystem for high-speed dual-channel ultra-wideband ground penetrating radar (GPR) system is designed and tested. Factors that could cause data missing and asynchronisation are analyzed. According to timing sequence, a field-programmable gate array-based onboard digital control module is integrated to synchronise the data acquisition and data storage subsystems. By applying simultaneous multi-buffer acquisition and readout mode and multi-threading configuration, as well as the critical section control and queue storage structure, the GPR data throughput is considerably improved. For the practicality of this system, a smart End-of-Job control design is performed between different threads to control data acquisition. By using different performance indexes, receiver operation characteristic curve, maximum scan rate, and the rebar detection experiment demonstrate the superiority of author's method.

The Karabo distributed control system.

The Karabo distributed control system has been developed to address the challenging requirements of the European X-ray Free Electron Laser facility, including complex and custom-made hardware, high data rates and volumes, and close integration of data analysis for distributed processing and rapid feedback. Karabo is a pluggable, distributed application management system forming a supervisory control and data acquisition environment as part of a distributed control system. Karabo provides integrated control of hardware, monitoring, data acquisition and data analysis on distributed hardware, allowing rapid control feedback based on complex algorithms. Services exist for access control, data logging, configuration management and situational awareness through alarm indicators. The flexible framework enables quick response to the changing requirements in control and analysis, and provides an efficient environment for development, and a single interface to make all changes immediately available to operators and experimentalists.

Design of a new cost-efficient automation system for gas leak detection in industrial buildings

ABSTRACT In industrial facilities, dangerous gas leaks may occur that are potentially harmful to human health and the working environment. Conventional gas measurement and control systems are commonly used to ensure a safe working environment. However, these systems have very high installation costs due to expensive components and further, this cost increases depending on the size of the site, the number of measurement points and the gas types. In this study, the design and implementation of a new low-cost gas leak detection system that has a simple control structure with a single sensor set have been carried out. In the proposed system, the measurement points in the area, where gas leaks are being detected, are combined with pipelines in a single measurement center. The air samples are taken from the measurement points through the pipes to the measuring center with a certain sequence starting from the first point to the last and are measured by a single sensor unit consisting of different gas sensors. The one cycle time required to measure all points is determined based on the length and diameter of the pipes, the number of measuring points and the specifications of the gases. The proposed system has been designed to measure H2S, CO, CH4 and O2 gases up to five measurement points within a 70-second cycle. Data accusation, control and monitoring of the system have been carried out with a programmable logic controller and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system. The proposed and conventional systems have been installed in an industrial storage building to obtain experimental performance data. Compared to the conventional system, the proposed system detects gas leaks with a delay of about three to nine seconds depending on the distance from the point at which the gas leak occurred to the measurement center. Besides gas leak detection, the gas leak value is measured with a difference between two and five ppm. As a result, the proposed system provides a similar measurement performance at a cost of approximately 75% less than conventional systems. In addition, since the sensor unit is located outside of the building, fires or explosions caused by the ignition source have been eliminated, which thus contributes to the reduction of the security risk.

Diseño de interfaz de control y adquisición de datos para un prototipo didáctico de refrigeración

The main objective of this work is to present the design and construction of a control system and data acquisition for a didactic refrigeration prototype, the didactic prototype consists of an evaporation cooling cycle in which it is important to know the voltage variables, current in the compressor, as well as pressure and temperature at each stage of the cycle, in order to understand the thermodynamic phenomena that occur in its operation. The data acquisition and control system reads, registers and displays the voltage, current, temperature and pressure variables on a machine-man interface, in turn it controls the operation of the prototype compressor and fan, when some process variable exceeds the limits permissible. In this system we use the Arduino platform, pressure, voltage, temperature and current sensors as part of the signal acquisition and conditioning system, as a virtual instrumentation environment the LabVIEW software, and a relay module as a power stage to control the outputs of the system. A polynomial regression of 3 orders was used to condition the voltage sensor readings. To verify the operation of the data acquisition system, the readings were compared against measurements of calibrated laboratory equipment.

Study on distributed lithium-ion power battery grouping scheme for efficiency and consistency improvement

The service life, safety, and capacity of lithium-ion power battery packs relies heavily on the consistency among battery cells. Grouping is an effective procedure to improve consistency by screening cells with similar performance and assembling them into an identical group. Battery grouping can be achieved via clustering techniques based on characteristics like static capacity, internal resistance etc. The dynamic characteristics-based method considers the battery performance during the entire charging-discharging process and has become one of the most promising grouping method. However, it suffers from high computational complexity. Nowadays, facing stricter quality standards and the increasing demand for battery products, existing dynamic characteristics-based grouping scheme cannot meet the performance and time requirement of the modern high-quality, large-scale battery manufacturing. In this paper, a novel grouping scheme based on distributed time-series clustering is proposed to match the need of both efficiency and consistency improvement. The proposed scheme designs an effective cloud-edge mode and utilizes an innovative two-stage trick to achieve parallel processing, which split the original centralized clustering approach into local clustering and global merging. The host computers for data acquisition and battery control are regarded as distributed edge computing resources to implement local clustering on the acquired battery discharging voltage sequence set. Cluster contours are extracted via a denoising contour extraction algorithm considering the irregularity of the discharging voltage sequences. The results of the above preliminary processing are uploaded to a cloud data center. A pragmatic merging scheme based on an integrated merging indicator is established to solve the decision-making problem of global merging on the cloud data center. The final global cluster set is transmitted back to host computers to instruct cell unloading operation. Experimental results based on real battery discharging voltage sequence data suggest that the proposed scheme can reduce the inconsistency rate by 43.56% and the time cost by 92.87%. The computing efficiency and resource utilization rate of the distributed scheme is much higher than the centralized scheme. Meanwhile, compared with three existing advanced grouping approaches, our scheme perform the best in reducing inconsistency rate. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Designing network‐connected systems for ecological research and education

AbstractWhile networked sensors are becoming a ubiquitous part of many human lives, their applications to the study of wild animals have been largely limited to off‐the‐shelf and stand‐alone technologies such as web cameras. However, purpose‐designed systems, applying features found in Internet‐of‐Things devices, enable more efficient gathering, managing, and disseminating of a diverse array of data needed to study the life histories of wild animals. We illustrate these claims based on our development of a system of networked nest boxes that we created to study nesting birds in urban environments. This system uses general‐purpose processors within nest boxes to perform edge computing to control data acquisition, processing, and management from multiple sensors. A central data‐management system permits easy access to all data, once downloaded, which has facilitated our uses to date of this system for formal university‐ and school‐level education, and informal science education.

An approach for predicting digital material consumption in electronic warfare

Electronic warfare is a modern combat mode, in which predicting digital material consumption is a key for material requirements planning (MRP). In this paper, we introduce an insensitive loss function (ε) and propose a ε-SVR-based prediction approach. First, we quantify values of influencing factors of digital equipments in electronic warfare and a small-sample data on real consumption to form a real combat data set, and preprocess it to construct the sample space. Subsequently, we establish the ε-SVR-based prediction model based on “wartime influencing factors - material consumption” and perform model training. In case study, we give 8 historical battle events with battle damage data and predict 3 representative kinds of digital materials by using the proposed approach. The results illustrate its higher accuracy and more convenience compared with other current approaches. Taking data acquisition controller prediction as an example, our model has better prediction performance (RMSE = 0.575 7, MAPE (%) = 12.037 6 and R2 = 0.996 0) compared with BP neural network model (RMSE = 1.272 9, MAPE (%) = 23.577 5 and R2 = 0.980 3) and GM (1, 1) model (RMSE = 2.095 0, MAPE (%) = 24.188 0 and R2 = 0.946 6). The fact shows that the approach can be used to support decision-making for MRP in electronic warfare.

Data acquisition and control system for an evolving nuclear microprobe

The application possibilities of the nuclear microprobe are constantly evolving which places new requirements on the data acquisition and microbeam control systems. MeV SIMS experiments for example, require the ability to pulse a continuous beam and steer it in the X-Y plane. For channeling RBS and STIM experiments, the sample needs to be rotated over two axes. Once it is positioned in the channeling direction, patterned irradiation may be needed. Additionally, with the evolution of digital electronics, it is now possible and sometimes preferred to perform signal processing in the digital domain as oppose to analogue signal chains in NIM modules.In this work we present the most recent upgrades to the data acquisition and control system developed at Rudjer Boskovic Institute. A data acquisition/control system based on a Xilinx Virtex 6 FPGA was developed which can evolve with the microprobe and be reconfigured for various applications. The real time reprogrammable nature of the FPGA coupled with a modular design approach, allow for the ADCs, processing algorithms and communication protocols to be interchanged and upgraded while keeping a constant user interface through the SPECTOR software package.

Design and Implementation of Gyro Off-line Test Platform

The off-line test platform of gyroscope is designed, and the functions of the platform are realized by designing the modules such as biaxial electric rotating platform, rotation controller, turntable control software, data acquisition and recording system. It is of great significance for the off-line test and preventive maintenance of gyroscope.

REAL TIME IMPLEMENTATION OF NONLINEAR PI CONTROLLER FOR THE INDUCTION MACHINE CONTROL

In this paper a nonlinear PI (NPI) controller are proposed and compared with the conventional linear fixed-gain PI controller to improve the overall performance of the system by incorporating a sector-bounded nonlinear gain in cascade with a conventional PI control architecture. The proposed controller has implemented for a 1.5-kW three-Phase Induction Motor are completely carried out using a dSPACE DS1104 digital signal processor (DSP) based real-time data acquisition control (DAC) system, and MATLAB/Simulink environment. Digital experimental results are presented to show the improvement in performance of the proposed algorithm.

Smart Toolkit for Fluorescence Tomography: Simulation, Reconstruction, and Validation.

Fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) can provide valuable molecular information by mapping the bio-distribution of fluorescent reporter molecules in the intact organism. Various prototype FMT systems have been introduced during the past decade. However, none of them has evolved as a standard tool for routine biomedical research. The goal of this paper is to develop a software package that can automate the complete FMT reconstruction procedure. We present smart toolkit for fluorescence tomography (STIFT), a comprehensive platform comprising three major protocols: 1) virtual FMT, i.e., forward modeling and reconstruction of simulated data; 2) control of actual FMT data acquisition; and 3) reconstruction of experimental FMT data. Both simulation and phantom experiments have shown robust reconstruction results for homogeneous and heterogeneous tissue-mimicking phantoms containing fluorescent inclusions. STIFT can be used for optimization of FMT experiments, in particular for optimizing illumination patterns. This paper facilitates FMT experiments by bridging the gaps between simulation, actual experiments, and data reconstruction.

New data acquisition control software developments for the simultaneous control of ten intelligent overview video cameras at W7-X

In the past two campaigns of Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator the overview video diagnostics played a key role in the daily experiments. The current software implementations went through numerous improvements and changes according to the continuously changing requirements. However, while the control software could handle all the needs, the changes reached a point where the redesign and re-implementation became necessary to ensure high reliability. In the next campaign of W7-X real-time data streaming will be implemented to W7-X’s Archive, which can be practically a limitless real-time data backup. Other improvements involve high-level interaction with the trigger-time-event (TTE) network, intense graphical user interface (GUI) improvements such as the grouping of cameras, visual display of measurement settings (e.g. exposure and readout timing). This new software package is arranged into two standalone pieces, similarly as in the previous version. One of the main upgrades is that the software will be able to send so-called event descriptions over the network during the measurement to a central event display, where events from several diagnostics will be visualized. This feature can provide essential information for machine operators, as they can visually monitor dangerous events inside the machine in real-time. This paper will present the detailed experiences, new requirements and detailed design, implementation and testing of this new software package.

A Teensy microcontroller-based interface for optical imaging camera control during behavioral experiments

BackgroundSystems neuroscience experiments often require the integration of precisely timed data acquisition and behavioral monitoring. While specialized commercial systems have been designed to meet various needs of data acquisition and device control, they often fail to offer flexibility to interface with new instruments and variable behavioral experimental designs. New methodWe developed a Teensy 3.2 microcontroller-based interface that is easily programmable, and offers high-speed, precisely timed behavioral data acquisition and digital and analog outputs for controlling sCMOS cameras and other devices. ResultsWe demonstrate the flexibility and the temporal precision of the Teensy interface in two experimental settings. In one example, we used the Teensy interface to record an animal’s directional movement on a spherical treadmill, while delivering repeated digital pulses that can be used to control image acquisition from a sCMOS camera. In another example, we used the Teensy interface to deliver an auditory stimulus and a gentle eye puff at precise times in a trace conditioning eye blink behavioral paradigm, while delivering repeated digital pulses to trigger camera image acquisition. Comparison with existing methodsThis interface allows high-speed and temporally precise digital data acquisition and device control during diverse behavioral experiments. ConclusionThe Teensy interface, consisting of a Teensy 3.2 and custom software functions, provides a temporally precise, low-cost, and flexible platform to integrate sCMOS camera control into behavioral experiments.

Control System (CS) and Data Acquisition (DAQ) architecture for the radiation background monitoring of a Personnel Safety System in the ATLAS cavern

EDUSAFE is a 4-year Marie Curie ITN project, which focuses on research into the use of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) during planned and emergency maintenance in extreme environments of high radiation background (HEP experiments, nuclear installations, space, deep sea, etc.) The scientific objective of this project is research into advanced VR and AR technologies for a personnel safety system platform, including features, methods and tools. Current technology is not efficient because of significant time-lag in communication and data transmission, missing multi-input interfaces, and simultaneous supervision of multiple workers who are working in the extreme high radiation background environment. The aim is to technically advance and combine several technologies and integrate them as integral part of a personnel safety system to improve safety, maintain availability, reduce errors and decrease the time needed for scheduled or sudden interventions. The research challenges lie in the development of real-time (time-lags less than human interaction speed) data-transmission, instantaneous analysis of data coming from different inputs (vision, sound, touch, buttons), interaction with multiple on-site users, complex interfaces, portability and wearability. The result is an integrated wearable VR/AR system and Control System which can be implemented and tested as a prototype. The LHC at CERN and its existing Personnel Safety System, requirements and protocols will be used as a test and demonstration platform. In this article the progress of the project will be presented and especially the major contribution of the NTUA team in developing and optimizing the Control System (CS) and the Data Acquisition System (DAQ).

I-Virtual lab kit with microcomputer-based laboratory (MBL) system for basic electronics

Basic electronics experiments are essential fundamental foundation in electronics. Hence, this work proposes an i-Virtual Lab Kit with microcomputer-based laboratory (MBL) system based on Gagnes’ nine instruction elements specifically for basic electronics and instrumentations experiments in pre-university level. Development process including hardware and software (module) will be discussed in details. Developed gadget utilizes Phidget Interface Kit and sensors for real-time data acquisition of voltage and current and sending it through USB (Universal Serial Bus) to personal computer (PC). LabVIEW used as the graphical interface to control data acquisition and data analysis. MBL module has been designed to represent the data interactively on the computer screen as well as an interactive laboratory teaching kit. Furthermore, voltage and current measurement were successfully merged with on-board electronics components for simplified experimental setup. This system was designed based on Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction, consists of four experiment modules, namely Ohm’s Law, RC Circuit, Virtual Meter and Diode Characteristics. It provides two input channels and also can be utilized as an oscilloscope on the computer screen. At low development cost, this sleek and compact system is expected to enhance students’ performances and attitudes towards the laboratory work in basic electronics. This claim will be validated later and will be included as a future work.

Upgrading of “IMASh 20-78” unit with a computerized test management system and data processing

An electronic module of control and data acquisition and transmission “BUPSD 01” has been developed for the IMASh 20-78 test unit which can be used both as a stand-alone control device and in conjunction with a computer. The software has been developed that allows detecting of loads and deformations using sensors, setting the speed of the grasp movement, and carrying out photo and video shooting with simultaneous construction of test schedules. As a result of the deep modernization of the unit developed more than thirty years ago, an almost new testing machine equipped with modern electronics with a wide functionality was obtained. Three stationary control racks and module of video recorder-monitor playback system are replaced with data acquisition and transmission control module, WEB camera and personal computer. Combination of the reliable mechanics (reduction gears, electric motors, grippers), which is part of the original installation with modern electronic equipment and software, allowed using of the unit at a qualitatively new level of research. In a modernized form, the unit is capable of continuous recording of data on loading and deformation into a text file and plotting a process schedule using this information storing it in the file. The video system control the entire test process with a WEB camera mounted on a microscope and record it in a file with the possibility of subsequent playback. Moreover, the system can take photos at any time and save them on the computer. The device has been tested in the study of the samples of metal alloys with various galvanic coatings and polymer composite materials. Information about new characteristics of the studied materials became available now in addition to the mechanical characteristics obtained earlier.