A mission-critical telemetry and desktop DAQ suite engineered for defense contracts and research laboratories, delivering remote, real-time monitoring of fuel cell electrochemistry and environmental test chamber parameters with unbroken trial archival.
The Challenge
Defense fuel cell evaluations and tactical environmental qualification trials demand absolute measurement integrity under punishing test protocols. Hydrogen fuel cell stacks undergo complex electrical, thermal, and fluid dynamic stresses where single-cell voltage dips, reactant pressure shifts, or sudden thermal runaway can destroy prototype hardware within seconds. Concurrently, environmental trial chambers introduce wide swings in ambient temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure. Conducting these trials without automated, high-frequency synchronization between fuel cell performance and environmental conditions introduces severe testing risks, unrecorded trial interruptions, and non-defensible data during military qualification reviews.
What We Built
We engineered a specialized, dual-tier telemetry and desktop acquisition platform tailored for defense laboratories and tactical trial installations. The software layer continuously interfaces with fuel cell stack controllers, multi-channel cell voltage monitoring (CVM) units, mass flow meters, and environmental test chamber instrumentation over secure industrial buses. Operating over isolated local links and secure remote telemetry backhauls, the system monitors live stack polarization, efficiency curves, and ambient stresses simultaneously, archiving every trial run into an encrypted, tamper-proof audit record from initial purge to full shutdown.
Key Capabilities
- High-Density Fuel Cell & Stack Telemetry: Synchronous multi-channel acquisition tracking individual cell voltages (CVM), stack current, hydrogen/air feed pressures, reactant flow rates, and internal membrane temperatures.
- Synchronized Environmental Chamber Interfacing: Unified logging of ambient chamber conditions—including temperature ramps, relative humidity profiles, and barometric pressure—aligned to the millisecond with fuel cell electrical telemetry.
- Dynamic Polarization & Health Diagnostics: Live desktop rendering of polarization ($V$-$I$) curves, power density metrics, and dynamic load-step responses to identify membrane dehydration or cell flooding in real time.
- Fail-Safe Safety Interlocks & Watchdogs: Real-time limit monitoring that triggers automated shutdown sequences, nitrogen purge cycles, and alarm relays upon detecting cell inversion, thermal thresholds, or reactant pressure drops.
- End-to-End Defense Trial Archival: Continuous, microsecond-stamped data streaming into an immutable trial database, automatically compiling complete test history, anomaly timelines, and certified qualification reports for defense program audits.
Outcome
Delivered total operational transparency and safety for high-stakes defense fuel cell testing. Defense research teams eliminated blind spots during destructive and long-duration environmental stress trials, ensuring 100% data fidelity, automated safety interlocks, and defensible, audit-ready compliance records for military sign-off.