A FLEXIBLE DATA-ACQUISITION AND MONITORING-SYSTEM

The paper discusses the development and implementation of a flexible process acquisition and monitoring system. The system allows for soft allocation of hardware channels into a predefined screen element. The screen layout is arranged as user definable utilizing a library of process graphic symbols. The system design is based on the use of personal computer as processing, management and monitoring unit. This is supported by a front-end processor for managing the acquisition channels scheduling. Communication is made through a dual port memory. The system leads to (a) menu driven reconfigurable system that should communicate with various types of process signals and (b) process mimic diagram generation and linking to process activities as an effective and application tailored process monitoring screen. The acquired process data is organized for short term, medium term and long term utilization. Allowing for natural usage of front end processor's memory, PC's main memory and PC's secondary memory. The system may be further utilized for intelligent tutoring purposes allowing for real time interaction with experiments.