dsPIC-based advanced data acquisition system for Monitoring, Control and Security Applications

This paper reports on design and implementation of data acquisition system based on dsPIC Microcontroller for Monitoring, Control and Security Application. Data acquisition is fundamental stage in any DSP, monitoring and digital control and security system. The efficiency and effectiveness of the system is defined by the quality of acquired data, which in turn depends on the characteristics of data acquisition system. There are two types of data acquisition; (a) digital (b) analog data acquisition, having different characteristics and system requirements. Microchip's dsPIC provides various on-chip integrated modules which enable efficient data acquisition such as 10/12-bit Analog to Digital Convertor (ADC) with up to 1Msps (Million samples per second) sampling rate, simultaneous sampling and various trigger mechanisms, Timers, Input Capture (IC), External (hardware) and Internal (software) Interrupt and processing capability up to 30 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second). A system is developed for data acquisition of 16 analog signals with 10/12-bit resolution, simultaneous sampling of 4 signals, fixed and variable sampling rate, on chip storage and real-time signal processing capabilities. The system also supports for data acquisition of digital signals with time resolution of up to 33.33nsec and signal parameters like frequency, time period, pulse width, duty cycle, and delay & time difference between two signals. It can be customized according to the system requirements and provides advanced data acquisition capabilities to the low cost monitoring, control or security system.