LabView Based Control System Design for Water Tank Heater System

Abstract

This paper presents the control system design for water tank heater system (WTHS) with the help of LabVIEW and Arduino UNO R3 based Atmega328 microcontroller to regulate the temperature of water inside the water tank heater system to a certain reference value. In the process control system, the accurate measurement of the temperature is not an easy task. The aim of this work is to develop a low-cost and flexible temperature controller for controlling and monitoring the temperature. The purpose of temperature control is to facilitate a system to a specified temperature, then maintain it at that temperature in a controlled manner. ATmega328 microcontroller is the best and cheapest way in which this type of control can be accomplished. The temperature sensor is used to sense the temperature of water inside WTHS and provide suitable data to the microcontroller through a signal conditioning circuit. The microcontroller sends the real temperature value to the LabVIEW based GUI inside the personal computer through USB cable. The controller scheme is developed in the LabVIEW based GUI application. The GUI provides the set-point value and real temperature value of water inside the tank with graphical plotting. The GUI is also provided ON-OFF status of the heater and data logging with respect to date and time. The discontinuous controller output is given to the microcontroller through USB for driving SSR based heater driver circuit. The microcontroller generates PWM signal depending on discontinuous controller output. Depending on the PWM signal, the AC heater current is controlled.

Keywords: Water tank heater system, RTD temperature sensor, signal conditioning circuit, Arduino Board with ATmega328 microcontroller, LabVIEW, PWM signal, SSR and AC heater

Cite this Article
Dhruv M. Patel, Ankit K Shah. LabView Based Control System Design for Water Tank Heater System. Trends in Electrical Engineering. 2017; 7(3): 31–40p.