Creating an Automated Perfusion System Using NI LabVIEW and CompactRIO

Humanitarian Award

Perfusion system for automated cell secretion analysis

Challenge: Improve the throughput and reproducibility of routine analysis of pancreatic islet cell secretion in patients with type 1 diabetes.

Solution: Using NI LabVIEW and CompactRIO, create an automated perfusion system to stimulate cell types with total environmental control and collect secretions.

Using LabVIEW and CompactRIO, we created the Biorep perfusion system quickly and cost-effectively.

Biorep Technologies is a company that designs equipment needed to isolate specific cells in the pancreas (islet cells). This complex process involves more than 20 different machines, 5 of which require a high degree of automation. The automation of these machines uses different platforms and programming languages. As the company grows, new problems arise, due to multiple learning curves, lengthy documentation, and different communication protocols between the first-level platforms, which makes efficiency very low.

After fully understanding NI products, we began to use LabVIEW for all automation devices, which only requires a common platform, a learning curve, and a simpler supply chain. Its comprehensive debugging tools and remote fault diagnosis capabilities have saved us more than $10,000 in time and travel costs.

Our software engineers used LabVIEW and CompactRIO to create a complex automated instrument in just three months. The instrument includes multi-axis motion control (stepper motors), precise temperature control of the insulation chamber, and complex fluid handling (electric valve matrix control). We used LabVIEW Real-Time and LabVIEW FPGA modules to develop the software architecture. Using the LabVIEW NI Soft Motion module for actual motion simulation allows us to predict and optimize the design and evaluate different design concepts before making physical prototypes. Using LabVIWE and CompactRIO, our development time was reduced from 12 months to 3 months and avoided the need to develop custom control software and drivers.

We initially developed the Biorep Perfusion System as a tool to test the capabilities of pancreatic islets in vitro. Since then, its functionality has expanded to measure secretions from different cell types differentiated from primitive pancreatic stem cells and has become an integral component of the pharmaceutical industry’s drug discovery process.

– Felipe Echeverri, Biorep Technologies Inc.

Editor's Choice Award

Using CompactRIO to monitor atmospheric ozone conditions on a Global Hawk UAV

Challenge: Develop an ozone monitoring instrument that can work on NASA's Global Hawk Unmanned Aeronautical Vehicle. It must be able to communicate with the ground, stream data locally, and be synchronized via the Network Time Protocol (NTP). [page]

Solution: Use CompactRIO to issue commands, control, and communicate for the Unmanned Ozone Monitoring System (UASO3).

CompactRIO-based ozone monitoring equipment successfully installed on NASA's Global Hawk drone at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center

The Earth System Research Laboratory, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado, studies the processes that govern chemical reactions and long-term climate change in the Earth's atmosphere and predicts how the atmosphere behaves.

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The ozone monitoring instrument we had been using was 22 years old and weighed 57 lbs. We needed to upgrade this instrument to reduce weight and add networking capabilities.

Our new UASO3 ozone meter is an absorption dual beam UV intensity meter. One beam is used to measure the ozone in the collected atmospheric sample, and the other beam passes through the same atmospheric sample after it has passed through an ozone filter. The instrument weighs only 37 pounds, is powered by 28V DC, and has an adjustable sampling rate from 0.5 to 10 Hz.

CompactRIO controllers meet the high processing speed, low power consumption, high mechanical strength and size requirements of test instruments, and can complete unpressurized atmosphere data collection and communication on unmanned aircraft (such as NASA's Global Hawk UAV) at an altitude of 64,000 feet.

–Laurel Watts, NOAA

Green Project Award

Controlling Echogen Energy Systems' waste heat engine

Challenge: Develop a real-time application to control and monitor Echogen Energy Systems' waste heat engines, and create a Windows-based application to enable remote and local monitoring of the entire system.

Solution: Develop a LabVIEW application on the CompactRIO platform to control the waste heat engine, using multiple PID closed-loop control to achieve the required system determinism.

Echogen Energy Systems' waste heat engines are targeted at industrial waste heat recovery and can harvest heat from a variety of energy sources. Based on their base equipment, we developed a controller and unit health monitoring system for a waste heat engine with a nominal net power rating of 250kW.

In order to achieve strict I/O synchronization indicators, we chose the CompactRIO real-time controller. The main design purpose of this thermal engine is for testing. The system requirements include the acquisition of more than 75 sensor signals and the control of more than 40 instruments through Modbus, analog, and digital signals. In addition, based on the reading of system variables (such as system pressure, fluid temperature, turbine load), we use a multi-PID control algorithm to control the system.

In terms of system architecture, the system is remotely operated, but we designed a local human-machine interface (HMI) to achieve control and monitoring. At the same time, we used Ethernet connection between the Windows computer and the real-time controller running the LabVIEW application to implement network-published shared variables, thereby completing the interaction of process data and message-based information communication.

At the same time, the CompactRIO controller running the LabVIEW real-time application has a multi-core central processor. The NI Distributed System Manager gave us great help in the development process, allowing us to comprehensively monitor the information of each system in the network, manage the published data, and access network-published shared variables and I/O variables without developing our own applications. We can even adjust the values ​​of network-published shared variables to remotely debug and calibrate process parameters without any human-computer interface. Using the various toolkits and development modules provided by NI, we can quickly adjust the system to meet the further needs of our customers.