Control of Industrial Pneumatic & Hydraulic Systems using Serial Communication Technology & Matlab

It has been observed that machines have become more intelligent, especially in manufacturing industries and power plants. Day by day use of hydraulic & pneumatic systems has been increasing rapidly. Some industries have only pneumatic systems for various operations. Instead of other rotary actuators industries are using pneumatic and hydraulic actuators to get better accuracy and smooth operations. Simultaneously engineers are focusing on computer control also. To construct a pneumatic system with a higher control features, the one and only option is computer control. It means that engineer would be able to control the whole system with the help of on board computer attached with the unit. To build such a system serial control techniques to control pneumatic & hydraulic systems have been shown in this paper. This system has been designed using Arduino Microcontroller (ATMEGA 168, 8 bit ATMEL), Matlab software, Arduino software, GUI (graphical user interface) toolbox, pneumatic components and some electromechanical switches. Verification of the pneumatic circuit can be done using Automsim premium software.