Our customer, a leading automotive test authority based in the UK, needed a cost effective
data acquisition and control system for a new engine test cell that they were developing.
The system needed to be used with an off the shelf powerful software system in order to move away from complex custom software with expensive options such as Labview.
The customer required various monitoring and control points, such as temperature for measurements like coolant temperature as well as actual test cell measurements, exhaust temperature, ambient humidity, strain gauge for pressure, digital IO for emergency stop and gear select as well as quadrature encoder for dyno control and shaft speed.
The customer also needed compatible SCADA development tools to support PID loop control as well as the standard SCADA visualization tools required by the customer as the overall requirement was quite unique.
The MAQ20 from
Dataforth, is a powerful, high-performance data acquisition system with IPE motion software that automatically detects modules plugged into the system, making addressing completely self-configuring and reducing setup times to a minimum.
Run time versions of the software can be deployed on multiple computers allowing distributed control and data acquisition, and complex math functions to analyse acquired data are possible in the click of a button with the intuitive IPE motion software.
More than just distribution
We were able to support direct communication between
Dataforth’s software engineers and the customer in order to help with the integration and customisation of the PID loop function into the software.
In addition we integrated components in to the
embedded computer system installing custom OS and the IP motion software with our
build to order service (
BTOS), and when the customer also required slight customisation to the
I/O modules, our in-house FAEs were also able to offer fast turnaround of these requirements.
Overall the customer benefited from excellent cost per channel system, customised software and operating system deployed on an industrial PC capable of sitting in the actual test cell therefore meeting all of the customers’ requirements and more.