Universal I/O Checkout System: NIU Senior Capstone Project

VoxSomnia maintains a strong connection with Northern Illinois University College of Engineering and Engineering Technology (CEET), the alma mater of three out of our four founders. Dominique (B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, 2018), Becca (B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, 2013) and Andy (B.S. & M.S. in Mechanical Engineering Thermal Fluids, 2013) all began their journeys at NIU. It was only natural that when Professor Nick Pohlman reached out to us to become a senior design sponsor, we were excited at the opportunity to give back to the University, while also getting to work with a group of students on a project that brings significant value to VoxSomnia.

VoxSomnia partners with clients in manufacturing to create custom test solutions that automate their product testing and data collection. Most often, these programs are written in LabVIEW and paired with NI (formerly National Instruments) or with PLC controls hardware. During the final implementation of any project, we typically spend 3-5 days onsite at the customer’s facility testing the software for bugs or other issues, and making sure production testing is running as expected.

The vision behind the Universal I/O Checkout System™ was to create a portable, modular, and lightweight device that enables us to check a wide variety of signals with the controls hardware divorced from the final test program software. This enables us to eliminate hardware signals as the culprit of any issues that arise during customer implementation testing. The goal of this project was to reduce project implementation time, allowing our customers to get production up and running an estimated 1-2 days sooner.

We met the team of students who selected our project in September of 2024 and set up weekly meetings to check the project status and answer any questions they had. We kicked it off with a few training courses led by Andy on industry controls and LabVIEW. We also scheduled a time for the students to visit our facility at mHUB to see an example control box that we were working on and collaborate on the preliminary design of the I/O Checkout device.

The design utilizes a rugged clamshell case on wheels and is fitted with custom-cut anti-static foam on the interior to provide protection for the electrical components against vibration. Inside the case is an 8-slot cDAQ chassis with seven of the eight slots utilized by different modules to measure signals including 0-10V, 4-20mA, temperature, and multiple types of digital signals, including a pulse counter. The LabVIEW program created by the students to pair with the hardware includes a UI with drop downs to select which signal is being tested and live graphs of the signal output.

The final presentation of the project took place at Senior Design Day at the Convocation Center on campus at NIU. All of the teams had their projects on display to present to other sponsors, students, professors, and even prospective high school students. Maja, Mos, and Vyrthandi demonstrated how to use the I/O Checkout System and how to navigate the program. It was evident that each of them took immense pride in their work and were incredibly passionate about the aspects of the project they had the most input in. At VoxSomnia, we are proud of what they accomplished for their senior capstone and we cannot wait to use the Universal I/O Checkout System at customers!

About the author

Becca Tiwet

Sales & Applications Engineer

The extroverted engineer, Becca's background is in manufacturing design, where she worked on the front lines of common challenges of the manufacturing world for many years. Her ability to uncover the root cause of customer problems is a key ingredient to VoxSomnia's success!