Remote monitoring and on-line control system of biological fermentation process based on LabVIEW

Microbe fermentation engineering is the basis of modern biological technique and industrialization, with the rapid development of microbe technique and the increasing enlargement of manufacturing dimensions in the fermentation industry, it is urgent to carry through advanced optimization and control for the fermentation process. Presently, LabVIEW as a new development tool has been successfully applied in the monitoring and on-line control of biological fermentation field, and becoming more and more popular. However, most of the researches are limited to the mode of host computer controlling slave computer, and remotely monitoring for the fermentation process is rarely reported. Therefore, the realization for the remote controlling and monitoring of the biological fermentation process is presented in detail in this paper. So, based on LabVIEW as development platform, combined with programmable logic controller (PLC) network and different sensors, and according to the Modbus serial bus communication protocol, the whole system not only realized data real-time acquisition and control for the different parameters of biological fermentation process, but also actualized remote control by using Datasocket technique. The total framework and hardware structure of the monitoring system, as well as the key technique for each functional module are described detailedly in this paper. It is proved that the system is safe and reliable, and successfully applied in some model fermentation device.