LabVIEW Delivers Embedded Programming to New NI Single-Board RIO Platform
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With the new board-only reconfigurable I/O (RIO) platform, engineers and scientists can deploy high-volume systems using off-the-shelf hardware and one integrated development tool, NI LabVIEW software. Although low-cost and high-volume system deployment is traditionally reserved for a small subset of engineers and scientists who can design custom hardware and master a wide range of fragmented development tools, NI has created a flexible RIO architecture to simplify designing and prototyping embedded systems for complex applications.
Engineers and scientists can use LabVIEW graphical programming tools to develop all aspects of their embedded systems, eliminating the need to create complex, low-level drivers and middleware commonly required when integrating I/O with an embedded system. The RIO architecture, composed of a real-time processor, a reconfigurable field-programmable gate array (FPGA), and plug-in I/O modules, has drastically improved the ability to quickly develop prototypes and low-volume deployed systems. The new NI Single-Board RIO high-volume platform uses this existing hardware and software architecture to facilitate a fast and reliable transition from prototyping to final deployment.
Figure 1. NI Single-Board RIO and CompactRIO share the same hardware architecture, so engineers can deploy existing CompactRIO applications in higher volumes on a cost-optimized RIO platform.
New NI Single-Board RIO Platform for High-Volume Applications
Engineers and scientists can choose from eight NI Single-Board RIO options based on their specific application and I/O requirements. The sbRIO-96xx devices are costoptimized with an embedded real-time processor, reconfigurable FPGA, and analog and digital I/O on one printed circuit board (PCB). The unenclosed design further decreases cost and provides the flexibility of designing a custom enclosure. For additional I/O needs not satisfied by one of the standard options, NI Single-Board RIO devices include three expansion slots for board-only versions of NI C Series I/O modules.
The NI Single-Board RIO platform delivers the same high-performance architecture as the NI CompactRIO control and acquisition platform but with a lower price point for higher-volume deployment. Due to the lower price and enclosure requirement, there are trade-offs between the single-board devices and CompactRIO. For example, when using the NI Single-Board RIO platform, engineers and scientists must ensure their machines or devices conform to applicable compliance requirements, such as electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) or CE, whereas CompactRIO is already certified for these specifications. They also are responsible for designing an enclosure with adequate heat dissipation.
The flexible NI Single-Board RIO platform combined with LabVIEW offers engineers and scientists a new path from designing and prototyping systems to cost-effective, high-volume deployment.
Table 1. The eight new NI Single-Board RIO devices offer a variety of processor speeds, FPGA sizes, and I/O mixes to fit the needs of many applications.
Watch a five-minute video demonstrating the programming ease of NI Single-Board RIO.
This article first appeared in the Q3 2008 issue of Instrumentation Newsletter.
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