8 Channel Configurable Data Logger for Reliability Testing and Quality Assurance

Jn Rajmond, Dan Pitic

Applied Electronics Department, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca, Romania rajmond.jano@ael.utcluj.ro

Abstract: Stand alone data loggers, which can monitor electrical dimensions play a key role in electronic system testing and maintenance. The following paper presents an 8 channel configurable data logger with the capability of independently programming measurement channels to acquire either current or voltage. Measurement data is stored for later analysis on a PC, creating virtually unlimited space for storage. It also provides real-time system monitoring and user-configurable alerts for channels exceeding minimum or maximum preset values. Although the system can work fully independent, these alerts may attract the users attention when a problem has occurred, so that he can intervene before the system under test suffers irremediable damage.
information about systems running in the field, and therefore can be used for equipment maintenance and quality assurance. Moreover, in recent years, the use of data logger has reached beyond the field of electronics, finding applications in domains such as structural engineering where storing data over long periods of time is essential [5], zoo technology, where wireless data transmission is a must [6] or even medicine [7][8], where logger size is the main factor to be taken into account. Unfortunately, most systems commercially available today, meet some, but not all of the requirements mentioned above. Some might have limited memory, as for example the Energy Logger Pro, from MicroDAQ, which has only 512 KB of available data memory [3] or the 8 Channel Voltage Data Logger from Omega, which can only store 16.383 reading/channel, at a price of $999 [4]. Most of them lack the ability of storing real time timestamps, and provide a real time graphical representation of the data being acquisitioned. None of them have any means of alerting the user in case of malfunction or inappropriate operation of the system under test. As a conclusion, it can be stated that there is a clear need for the development of a configurable data logger with high storage capacity, good accuracy at a
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1. INTRODUCTION
Every electronic system that is launched on the market must undergo rigorous testing procedures before its final release. The sooner testing is started and errors are observed, the cheaper it is to fix these [1]. In other cases, these electronic systems must be actively monitored during operation in order to assure their functionality within certain limits and/or provide debug data to system engineers. Therefore data acquisition systems are used widely in the industry, and play and ever increasing role in improving productivity and quality assurance [2]. Developers often need to run a reliability test on their systems, making sure that the designed system functions within the given parameters over extended periods of time, often over several days. It is obvious that these sorts of test cannot be carried out by human testers, and therefore data loggers are deployed, to monitor and store the functional parameters of the unit under test. For obvious reasons, these data loggers need to be as precise as possible, to be able to store measurement data over long periods of time while also being immune to perturbation injected in the environment by the unit under test, which can be anything from an electronic microsystem, to a high power industrial system. Besides equipment testing, these data loggers can also be used to provide

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reasonable size and price, which is also capable of offering real-time graphical representation of the data being acquired.

either connected or not connected mode by a 2:1 multiplexer at the gain terminals of the instrumental amplifier. Channels can be configured via the user software (discussed later on), and the configuration data is transmitted from the PC to the microcontroller, in a data packet every time channel configurations change. Based on the configuration info, the controller then knows when to command the 2:1 multiplexer to connect or disconnect the gain resistor from the instrumentation amplifier. The multiplexers were chosen from Texas Instruments, an automotive high speed CD74HC4051Q1 for the 8:1 measurement channel selector and a 0.3 Ohm Dual SPDT Analog Switch, TS3A24159, for the 2: 1 multiplexer, to minimize impact on measurement data. The instrumentation amplifier is an enhanced precision, low power INA 129EP, also from Texas Instruments. The microcontroller used was an ATmega8 supplied by AVR, as if offers a 10 bit builtin ADC. Power to the circuit is supplied via an USB connector from the PC. To compensate for power supply irregularities, the same +5V supply line is used both for the INA129EP positive power supply, as well as for the reference voltage for the controllers ADC. To be able to measure voltage levels near 0V, the INA129EP needs a differential power supply, so in order to generate -5V a Buck-Boost circuit was designed and implemented on the PCB. An RC filter was also implemented at the power supply terminals of the INA129EP in order to eliminate power supply oscillations, which can have an influence on measurement results.

2. HARDWARE DESIGN
Based on the observation deduced in the above paragraphs, we can now figure out the design specification for the data logging system: It should have at least 8 differential channels It should transmit data wirelessly or over a high speed wired connection to a PC The storage media should be a hard drive or high capacity flash drive on the PC to assure sufficient data memory Graphical representation of data acquired should be available via a provided software Time stamps for data readings should be also stored Based on these specifications, the block schematic seen in Figure 1 was conceived. The data logger has 8 differential channels as inputs. Data is read via a high precision instrumentation amplifier by the analog-todigital conversion unit of the microcontroller. The microcontroller then has the task of transmitting the data to the storage and analysis media. Channels are read multiplexed, 1 through 8, in order. Each channel can be configured to measure either voltage or current. Based on the current channels configuration, a gain resistor is switched in

Figure 1 Block diagram of the 8 channel data logger

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Of course, designing such a system is a step-bystep process, so for the first prototype that has been built the elements most prone to failure were eliminated. These included replacing wireless and TCP/IP transmissions with a serial transmission. The serial interface of the ATmega8 offers a high enough baud rate in order to assure the proof of concept, and then data transmissions can be replaced by the ones in the original design, in order to increase the bandwidth of the acquired signal.

3. SOFTWARE DESIGN
3.1. Software for the microcontroller The software running on the microcontroller is fairly simple and has the diagram presented in Figure 2.
Start

The microcontroller multiplexes measurement channels 1 through 8 and also commands the 2:1 multiplexer which connects or disconnects the gain resistor from the set gain terminals of the INA129EP, based on whether the current channel measures voltage of current. After data from all 8 channels have been acquired the controller forms an 18 byte data packet (1 start byte, 2 x 8 data bytes from each channel and 1 stop byte) and sends the packet to the PC. It then checks if new channel configuration data is available in its receive buffer. If there is new incoming data, then it is read, and the new set of measurement will be carried out according to the new channel configuration. 3.2 The user interface on the PC The software running on the PC is a bit more complex, as it has the role of giving the user control over the system setup, as well as displaying measurement data, and alerting the user in case of system malfunction.

Init device

Command MUXes for measurement & Read current channel

Select next channel

Read all channels?

Yes

Send data packet to PC

No

No

Config data waiting?

Yes

Read config data

Figure 2 Microcontroller software diagram

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Figure 3 - User interface diagram

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A very simplified diagram of the user interface is presented in Figure 3. When the interface starts, the user is prompted to enter the path and name of the file where measurement data would be stored. Then the serial port is polled for incoming data. When measurement data is received from the controller, the displays and graphs are updated and the data, along with the receive timestamp are stored in the text file specified. Also, the data is checked to be in concordance with the minimum and maximum preset values by the user. If there is a conflict, an alert displays on the PC screen, and a sound warning is also heard. Figure 4 shows the user interface.

and compensated by the software, these may not always be consistent. One solution would be using a real-time clock circuit (such as the PCF8583P from Philips), on chip, which could place the timestamp to the data when events occur. However this would mean increasing the size of the data packet by additional bytes, and further reducing the bandwidth of the acquired signal. All in all, although the system built is purely experimental and several improvements can be made, it has been proved that a multichannel configurable and precise data logger can be built, with virtually unlimited memory. The data logger can be used in applications which require system testing over extended periods of time or wherever remote observation of electronic systems is necessary. Settable minimum and maximum channel values with alerts also eliminate the need of a constant presence of a human operator and reduce the probability of irreversible damages to the system under test. Timestamps of events and measurements also assure the possibility of system debugging may errors or damages still occur.

REFERENCES
Figure 4 - The user interface [1] The V model Relevant to Professional Scheme Paper 2.1, 2006 (accessed May 2010) http://www.accaglobal.com/pubs/students/publications/ student_accountant/archive/sa_0106_sskidmore.pdf. [2] H. L. Poon, Applications of data acquisition systems, Computers in industry, Vol. 13, Issue 1, September 1989, pp. 49-59 [3] http://www.microdaq.com/occ/h22/energy-logger.php (accessed May 2010) [4] http://www.omega.com/ppt/pptsc.asp?ref=OM-CPOCTVOLT (accessed May 2010) [5] A. Strauss, D. M. Frangopol, S. Kim, Use of monitoring extreme data for the performance prediction of structures: Bayesian updating, Engineering Structures, Volume 30, Issue 12, December 2008, pp. 3654-3666 [6] R. S. MacKay, Biomedical telemetry, Second Edition, IEEE Press, 1992 [7] W. Claes, R. Puers, W. Sansen, M. de Cooman, I. Naert, A low powered miniaturized autonomous data logger for dental implants, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, Volumes 97-98, 1 April 2002, pp. 548-556 [8] J. Kanetake, Y. Kanawaku, M. Funayama, Automatic continuous monitoring of rectal temperature using a button-type thermo data logger, Legal Medicine, Volume 8, Issue 4, July 2006, pp. 226-232

4. CONCLUSIONS
The purpose of the study was to design a configurable data logger, which allowed the acquisition of both currents and voltages, marked with timestamps, and was capable of storing unlimited data samples. Connecting the data logger to the PC assured unlimited storage memory, but the sampling frequency was greatly reduced by the serial transmission implemented in the first prototype. However, increasing the baud rate, or switching to a high speed data transfer method, like USB 2.0 (at a bandwidth of 480 Mbits/s) or TCP/IP (at a bandwidth of 100 Mbits/s) could result in a great increase in the maximum allowed frequency of the sampled signal. Another limitation is that the timestamp is place by the PC on receiving the data. Although time delays introduced by the transmission line can be calculated

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