Low cost SCADA for a laboratory-scale bioreactor

This work presents the development of a Supervisory, Control And Data Adquisition (SCADA) using open hardware and free software, for an NBS BioFlo III bioreactor system used in a laboratory inside Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Design and development of the SCADA BioFlo III system it's based in a web server connected with the fermenter. The server register every process variable in specific databases, which are available from a graphical user interface (GUI) programmed entirely in web language. Such GUI it's accessible from any device with internet access and the corresponding University VPN certificates, which make this SCADA system multi-platform in every aspect. To interact physically with the reactor, an Arduino platform is used. It communicates with the server (under an specific protocol) through a communication interface programmed in Phyton. The GUI interacts directly with the database, which is also accessed by the same communication algorithm.