Automating, monitoring, and control of an ICE based micro-CCHP system using LabVIEW and Android

A methodology to automate and control a small-scale combined heat and power system (micro-CHP) is proposed. The contribution of this design is to extend the original plant toward micro-CHP system modeling, thus allowing flexible and efficient system through graphical programming. The automation involves the synthesized system analysis; thereby, human intervention is reduced. It builds on LabVIEW™ software that takes the model architecture to monitor and control de plant. Measured signals and parameters (SQL database) managed by LabVIEW™ are used to issue remote control communication. An Android application was developed to communicate with the database. The integration methodology of automation, monitoring and control energy variables in real-time may be extended to study failures and possible improvements on micro-CHP systems.