Development Of An Automated Monitoring System For Solid-State Fermentation Of Zhenjiang Aromatic Vinegar

Zhenjiang aromatic vinegar is one of the four traditional famous vinegars in China,which is an influential condiment and has been recognized by many people throughout the country.One of the most important reasons why Zhenjiang aromatic vinegar can win a good reputation in the market lies in its unique solid-state layered fermentation process,which has been listed by the State Council as one of the first “National Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Lists” in 2006.Turning grains is an essential procedure in the solid-state layered fermentation process.This procedure has been mechanized,but the specific turning depth and turning time still rely on human experience,which is lack of scientific theoretical basis and is difficult to ensure the consistency of vinegar quality.In addition,the detection of key parameters of vinegar culture in the solid-state fermentation process,especially the temperature detection is still in the off-line mode,which costs high but has poor real-time performance.In order to respond to the “Made in China 2025” strategy and realize the intelligent transformation of Zhenjiang aromatic vinegar industry,this work focuses on developing automated monitoring and grains-turning control system of solid-state layered fermentation process of Zhenjiang aromatic vinegar.The main tasks are as follows:Based on the design of the mechanical ontology and the hardware system,the STM32F103ZET6 chip is selected as the main controller.The peripheral module is make up with power module,temperature sensor module,proximity sensor module,motor drive module and industrial serial screen module.The GPRS network communication technology and 2.4G wireless radio frequency technology are utilized to complete the design of temperature detection and grains-turning control system.In addition,the devices based on modular programming conception are designed,such as zero-setting program and temperature measurement program of temperature detection device and grains-turning program and hopper clean program of grains-turning device,etc.The system monitoring part was developed on the cloud service platform architecture.The Socket communication server based on TCP protocol was developed in C#,and the server completed network communication connection between the acquisition terminal and the cloud platform.SQL Server was chosen as database management software,and a dedicated relational data table design was completed for the cloud monitoring system.Based on ASP.NET,controls and static texts were used to build visual elements of web pages,webpage logic code was written by using C#,and the development of web client was completed.Monitoring App was developed by using Java in Android Studio IDE,message notification was achieved by the Android kernel Broadcast mechanism,and data interaction and charting with Web Service were realized by using two third-party packages,which are ksoap and MPAndroidChart.The results of on-site tests show that the proposed system achieves the technical requirements of the solid-state layered fermentation process of Zhenjiang aromatic vinegar with temperature measurement accuracy of 0.1 °C,slice accuracy of 2 mm,sampling time of 4.5 sec,cloud service platform response time of 0.8 sec.This system has comprehensive functions and high reliability which is promising in production and application.