Arvind,
Since you are working on your Masters degree, it is likely that you already have a Bachelors dergree or equivalent. So I will assume that you know the basics of engineering. I will also assume that your previous classes did not actually teach you much about design or how to manage a project (because so many engineering schools do not teach that).
You have a statement in qualitative terms describing your project. The next thing to do is to specify in quantitative terms the parameters which are important to success of the project. Size of the box, pressures, temperatures, times, plasma densities, ... You will also need a sequence-of-events document which includes not only the basic process but also as many possible faults and failure modes as possible.
For example. Close the door manually. (How will the automated system know the door is shut? What will it do if the door does not shut within x seconds?) Depressurize the chamber. (To what pressure or vacuum level? How much time is allowed for this step? What if the pressure is still too high after the time limit? -- This suggests a leak.) Inject hydrogen peroxide. (How much? How will it be measured? What it the pressure/time/quantity is too high? Or too low?) ...
What kinds of sensors or measuring equipment are needed to answer all these questions? What kinds of output signals are generated by these sensors and instruments?
What kind of actuators or controllers are needed to perform the actions of the system? What kinds of signals do you need to generate to control these devices?
Does this device (as medical equipment) need to meet specific regulatory requirements? Steam sterilizers need to have certifiable measurements of the time and temperature inside the chamber. It may be necessary to have measurements independent from those used for the automation process.
Once you have a comprehensive specification document, then you begin to identify components, instruments, and systems which can satisfy the individual requirements. Then you figure out how to get everything to talk to everything else. That is where the programming language (which may be LabVIEW) comes in. The task of the program is to implement the communications between devices and users and to do much of the decision-making for the apparatus.
If you are not taking a course which teaches the basics of LabVIEW, you should start with the on-line tutorials. You can work on these while preparing the specification document.
Lynn
