Microconverter AduC 842 and LabVIEW bench: a best suitable approach for real time plotting of pressure area isotherm of monolayer

A real time system has been developed for measuring and plotting of surface pressure area isotherm of Langmuir films for studying phase transitions of the monolayer at National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India. Microcontroller and LabVIEW platform is best suitable combination for gearing up any scientific application for measurement, data acquisition and control. With the technology advent in microcontrollers, a new era in the form of Microconverter is available at user's door step. The attempt has been made to develop stand alone real time system using base intelligence of Microconverter ADuC 842 for measuring surface tension exerted by Langmuir films. The films formed on the surface of the water, are compressed by smooth and precision barrier mechanism. A DC motor is used to control the speed and direction of the barriers. I2C compatible EEPROM is provided on - board for data storage and it can be communicated to PC through LabVIEW VISA for further analysis. LabVIEW is intuitive graphical programming language designed for engineers and scientists. The other features provided are, In-circuit Programming for firmware updating, keyboard functioning for special routine executions, I2C compatible RTC and battery backup. The software has been completely developed using assembly language programming for Microconverter module. Front end development has been carried out using LabVIEW software for data acquisition and real time plotting of Pressure Area Isotherm.