Design and development of a PC-based automated data logging system for measuring temperature

Abstract

Currently, accurate information of the temperature over time is required in medical, scientific, and various industrial applications. The objective of this work was to design and develop a fully automated microcontroller-based data logging system to measure the temperature in a working environment. The system consists of a temperature sensor (LM35), a data logger with a memory card, and a high-performance low-power AVR 8-bit microcontroller (ATMega-8). The system consisted of LCD monitoring device and a computer terminal for storing and displaying the data. A simple and user friendly graphical user interface (GUI) was developed using the LabVIEW software package and connected with the data acquisition system. This inexpensive real-time system was preliminary tested in a room, and the data were obtained from the LCD display without any problems. In addition, it was verified that the data were sequentially stored in the memory. The observed data are comparable with data measured using a conventional mercury thermometer. The developed system can be used in many areas, including personal bedrooms, industrial settings (particularly dairy, fuel, and agricultural), shipping containers, medical applications, and any place where the temperature needs to be recorded and monitored. In conclusion, the developed system is easy to use, requires no additional hardware, and permits the selection of the amount of data and the time intervals between the data recordings. In addition, the collected data can easily be transferred to a computer via a connected serial port.