Being on a manufacturing engineering degree course I am a total novice to electronics, for part of my studies I have to design an electronic (computer based) control system.
I am quite baffled by this and was wondering if you could help? The objective is as follows:
To design an electronic (computer based) control system which measures air temperature and pressure in a greenhouse using analogue input signals. It also records closure of the door using a limit switch. The unit opens the window system using a servometer in order to stabilise the temperature (this is an analogue output). Also it illuminates a LED if the temperature exceeds a high value.
I must show a sketch/CAD design of the system and show the central computer as a single module. giving full details of the input/output signal processing arrangements.
I would be ever so grateful if you could help or suggest somewhere I could look on the internet for similar project.
Is sounds like they just want you to use generic building blocks like a DAQ card with digital IO, AtoDs and DtoAs. If you want some ideas about what sort of stuff you can buy for computer data aquisition and control take a look at National Instruments' web site. They are one of the biggest companies selling computer measurement products.
sounds like a job that a PIC microcontroller would be more than qualified for... but I guess that would depend on what the project requires, ie- their definition of "computer based"