Research · Data acquisition · Instrumentation

Respirometry —
Modernising a Research Acquisition System

Replacing an ageing LabVIEW / CompactRIO acquisition chain on animal respiration chambers — with an open, maintainable stack the lab controls.

Client University research laboratory, Belgium

Domain Research instrumentation · Data acquisition

Status Formally accepted — in service since October 2026 · Phase 2: chamber commissioning support

Scope Scoping · Architecture · Instrumentation · Acquisition software · Data storage · Dashboard

Context

Measuring metabolism through the air animals breathe

Respirometry — indirect calorimetry — measures an animal's metabolism by analysing the gas exchange in its respiration chamber. The quality of the research depends directly on the quality and continuity of the measurement.

The lab's existing acquisition ran on a LabVIEW / CompactRIO chain reading the gas analysers. It worked, but it was ageing, tied to a proprietary ecosystem, and dependent on skills and licences that were increasingly hard to keep.

The question was not only how to replace it, but what to replace it with — for a system that has to keep running for years of experiments.

Scoping

Three scenarios

The project started with three priced scenarios, from continuing the existing NI ecosystem to a fully open stack — so the lab could decide with costs and trade-offs on the table.

An open stack

The lab chose the open option: standard industrial I/O and open-source software, with no dependency on a single vendor's hardware, runtime or licences.

Built to be kept

Every component chosen to be replaceable and understandable by the lab — so the system outlives the people who built it.

Solution

Industrial I/O, Python acquisition, hardware managed from the interface

Analysers and sensors are read through Advantech ADAM I/O modules and instruments over Modbus or RS-232 — standard protocols, standard hardware, available from many suppliers.

A Python acquisition stack collects, timestamps and stores the measurements in TimescaleDB, a time-series database built on PostgreSQL. The dashboard shows the live state of the installation with small validation graphs, and exports the data for analysis.

The key is the admin interface: the hardware configuration is managed there, so the lab can change a sensor type or add an I/O module quickly — the system follows the experiments instead of constraining them.

The result replaces the LabVIEW / CompactRIO chain end to end, and has been formally accepted by the client.

Technical details

I/O

Advantech ADAM modules.

Protocols

Modbus, RS-232.

Acquisition

Python acquisition stack.

Storage

TimescaleDB (PostgreSQL time-series).

Dashboard

Live installation state, validation mini-graphs, data export.

Administration

Hardware configuration from the interface — sensor types and I/O modules added or changed quickly.

Replaced