I started my professional life in 1998 when joining IS3i, a service company specialized in industrial technology (IT) within SEO Group. As a partner of National Instruments, this company was offering its service engineers to develop test benches. I had the opportunity to develop my first software dedicated to tests, measurements, acquisition and instruments control using LabVIEW, TestStand and LabWindows/CVI.
In 2001, I have been promoted as a project manager. I was in charge of technical and financial proposals, follow-up and projects completion I was responsible to settle engineer teams and define material specifications to our subcontractors. During this period, our company joined Brime Technologies group within which IS3i organization was ever present.
In 2003, I took the technical direction of this former IS3i entity in Assystem France group. I had opportunity to get experience: to engineer recruitment in order to integrate my teams, to develop my ability in staff coaching and to increase my capacity in project management and broader financial trading with our customers and suppliers. Then I was charged of Zodiac Aerospace and Schlumberger accounts, responsible of engineers and technicians teams dedicated to their related technical assistance.
Throughout those experiences and always pursuing the goal to get a stronger technical skill, I decided in 2005 to wing my way and I started to offer my own expertise as a freelancer consultant.
My clients are all over France, Europe and whole world. My activies give me the oportunity to travel an average of 100 000 km per year. So I can say I have no geographical limits. In addition to the French, I speak English and Spanish fluently and Portuguese as well.
These are libraries of graphical controls and functions for the rapid development of industrial or laboratory solutions containing .NET technology used directly in Visual Studio, to have power tools National Instruments software and instrumentation functions for C++ , C# or Visual Basic.
LabWindows is a development environment in C language for the implementation of test systems, measurement and instrumentation. Thus, it is possible to enjoy both the power and precision of the C language but also libraries of functions for instrumentation and signal processing from National Instruments.
Calibration system for oil well sensors. This system measures the pressure and the temperature behavior of the sensors along one week to one month. All measurements are safeguarded in a data base to be analyzed and to create reports/ratios.
Oil sensor example
Measurement software screenshot
Hardware Technology
The system is composed of a PC computer which dialogs with oil sensors via serial bus and it is linked to a bench via GPIB bus.
The bench contains several modules :
Power supplies
Counter
Swithes Matix
Multimeter
Barometer
Pressure generator
Temperature generator
Software Technology
Operating software : MS Windows 2000 Measurement software : NI LabWindows/CVI Analysis software : Visual Basic, MS ACCESS, ODBC, SQL Report formats : MS EXCEL, PDF
How does it work ?
The measurement software controls the temperature and the pressure generated in simulated oil well. Sensors to calibrate, situated down into the oil well, send data to the measurement software. Theses data are stored in a database. At the end of the measurement campaign, recorded data available in the database are analyzed and graph reports are generated (PDF or excel reports).
The fuses and relays box test bench has two functions in trucks assembly factory:
it displays to the operator the optional fuses and relays to be manually inserted according to the serial number of the truck
it inspects the box by vision checking all standard and optional fuses and relays are in place
Fuse box visual inspection test bench
Description
The fuse inspection test bench consists of:
hight quality industrial camera
hight power LED lights
metal structure
test fixture to fix the fuse box
sensors to detect bad insertion of the fuse box
stack lights red/amber/green for test bench state
enclosure to protect computer and electric and electronic components from industrial environment
touchscreen
computer with vision acquisition and vision analysis powered with LabVIEW
The fuse inspection test bench works in two modes:
production mode: this is the operator mode. It displays the optional components the operator have to insert and controls by vision the optional and standards components. It verifies the label part number. The specification of the components are extracted from the production database. At test end, it prints a label with serial number and test result for visual traceability. It generates test report file and synchronizes with network.
maintenance mode: this is the technician mode. It allows the calibration and components identification learning, and verifies the synchronization with the production database.
This system allows the study of refrigeration systems and the implementation of the thermodynamic calculations applied to refrigeration. Its uniqueness is that it is fully controllable via the Internet directly from a web browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox.
It consists of two cold rooms, each with their own evaporator but sharing the same cooling fluid R134a system (compressor, condenser …).
The control and configuration of this system can be done in two ways:
a classic console coupled to a regulator
PLC type industrial PAC (programmable automation controller) Compact Fieldpoint
The Compact Fieldpoint adds the possibility of remote control via the Internet, viewing the evolution curves of temperature, air and refrigerant fluid, pressure and power at various points. This allows calculating the required cooling system features such as enthalpy, entropy, Mollier diagram and performance coefficients.
Refrigeration system with control panel and circuit fluid
Hardware
The software is embedded in a Compact Fieldpoint controller from National Instruments. It includes a RJ45 Ethernet connector that allows to connect to the network in aim of uploading the executable on the controller module to the embedded FTP and publish shared variables on the network. We use Compact Fieldpoint module inputs / outputs, analog and relays for sending commands (start / stop, compressor speed , refrigerant solenoid valves, condenser and evaporator fans, lights and heaters for cold rooms) and collect measurements. We measure the power consumed by the compressor with the power meter included in the regulator. This regulator communicates only by Jbus protocol. So we use the RS-232 Compact Fieldpoint controller and connect to it an RS-232 <-> RS-485 converter. Jbus communication functions are programmed into the controller based on the Modbus protocol that is compatible for our use. An Ethernet 8 relays card is added to increase the number of relays.
The refrigeration system with Compact Fieldpoint modules in blue embedding LabVIEW real -time software. Also shown on the right side doors of the two cold rooms.
Software
LabVIEW for programming and compiling the program embedded in the controller Compact Filedpoint
LabVIEW RT Module for programming in LabVIEW embedded targets with real-time constraints
Operating system of the Compact Fieldpoint controller: Phar Lap ETS IntervalZero (Group Citrix)
HTTP server embedded in the Compact Fieldpoint controller to display directly in a web browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer …) the GUI controls and graphs
FTP server embedded in the Compact Fieldpoint controller to download the executable and configuration files and data
Screenshot of the GUI software programmed with LabVIEW, embedded in the controller module of the Compact Fieldpoint controller from National Instruments. You can access this interface from the Internet via a web browser like Google Chrome here.
How does it work?
The user has the option to choose, by a switch, using the bench in local mode with the classical control panel or using it in remote mode for examination and regulation by the Compact Fieldpoint. If the remote mode is selected, it is possible to visualize all the features, curves and calculations (entropy, enthalpy, Mollier diagram, performance coefficients) by connecting, via a web browser, to the controller. An LED lights when a remote user requests the control to change temperature settings or sending commands. A function allows the measurements recording for export to Excel. It is thus possible to reload these recordings to simulate the cooling system without making it work. Can be viewed simultaneously from multiple remote station but only one can get the control of the bench.
