ABSTRACT
Laboratory automation involves controlling laboratory equipment remotely by using a controller and reading their outputs digitally. The system has been so popular that later it was adapted by Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) as a standard which is also known as the IEEE-488 standard. Laboratory equipment with a general purpose interface bus interface (GPIB) is usually intelligent data acquisition devices. The IEEE-488 bus is divided into three basic sets of lines: 8 data lines: DIO1-DIO8, 5 control lines: attention, interface clear, remote enable, end or identify, and service request and 3 handshaking lines: data valid, not ready for data and not data accepted. The chapter looks at a typical interface converter and how to program it for controlling a laboratory instrument with an IEEE-488 interface. It examines a PCL 848 A/B multifunction IEEE-488 interface card designed by Advantech Co. Ltd. The chapter explores case study using a data acquisition crate which has an IEEE-488 interface.
