Alternate In-Situ Environmental Testing System by Matrix Design

Abstract

Compared with the existing in-situ environmental testing system, this alternative one got significant improvement on measuring capacity, total cost, as well as number of connections that must be made between the hardware configuration and devices in chamber. This research adopted an innovative matrix-designed hardware configuration by involving multiplexers to realize the transition from channel to channel and successive measurement. By this method, not only the measuring capacity has been increased to 2048, but also the cost has been cut down substantially. In the original system, every switching box with the capacity to monitor 400 channels costs $15,000, while the cost of the hardware in this new system to provide 2048 channels is no more than $300. Furthermore, only 96 wires will pass through the access port on chamber wall to make connections with the hardware design. The measurement software developed in Labview is also modified to cater for the new hardware configuration, thus new measuring mechanism.