The purpose of developing the custom automation system was to improve on manual methods of organism training that required laboratory technicians to observe organism behavior and manually control the application of negative stimulus. Technicians could typically only perform testing for 2-3 hours at a time before fatigue set in, but the automated system runs around the clock with no technician intervention beyond initial experiment setup. The system allows the organisms to block optical sensor beams within a Petri dish which in turn shuts off a negative stimulus (light). The system can train up to 24 organisms in individually controlled cells and can run continuously to expedite experimental results.

The organism training system is controlled by a programmable logic controller (PLC) which reads the signals from 96 optical sensors and controls the application of negative stimulus (white LED's) based on the experimental mode set by the researcher. The brightness of the white LED's is adjustable from full intensity to off. The PLC communicates with a data acquisition PC via RS-232 communications. Researchers are using Matlab programs to analyze the data that is being sent and received from the PLC every second.

Additional features of the system include:

• Green LED's provide real-time feedback of optical sensor state
• Light stimuli can be independently controlled by any cell sensors
• Gas springs provide positive pressure to hold the cover open & closed
• Fan cooling of cells to avoid water evaporation in organism habitat
• Hardware constructed from aerospace grade anodized aluminum