LabVIEW Real-Time Now Supports Breadth of High-Accuracy Instrument Modules

National Instruments has continually innovated on the vision of virtual instrumentation to deliver faster development tools, tighter integration with I/O, and lower system cost. One of the most recent NI additions to virtual instrumentation is LabVIEW Real-Time support for high-performance PXI modular instruments, such as the NI PXI-4070 61/2-digit FlexDMM and the NI PXI-5124 200 MS/s 12-bit digitizer. With real-time support, you can design high-performance, custom instruments with maximum reliability and the capability to run autonomously.

Evolution of Virtual Instrumentation

Stand-alone traditional instruments such as oscilloscopes and digital multimeters are designed to perform one or more specific tasks defined by the vendor. Adding PC control to these traditional instruments provides some level of customization, but the vendor-defined measurement software running on the instrument’s embedded real-time operating system ultimately limits you.

Because virtual instrumentation is based on PC software, it provides the capability to design user-defined virtual instruments that meet specific application requirements. With virtual instrumentation, you also can integrate your measurements and control hardware into a standard PCI or PXI system. This integration eliminates the duplication of computer components found on traditional instruments such as display, processor, and memory. This gives you a more powerful, flexible, and software-based solution.

One component that is not typically part of a standard PC is a real-time operating system (RTOS). An RTOS is designed specifically for deterministic and embedded applications and imparts a higher level of reliability than standard operating systems. The increased reliability of an embedded RTOS is important for applications such as expensive-to-recreate tests. Examples of these tests include tests that destroy prototypes, execute for long periods of time, or require the use of expensive resources like wind tunnels.

Real-time operating systems, which have traditionally been niche application-specific tools, are increasingly present in mainstream applications. Building on this trend, NI released LabVIEW Real-Time in 1998 to bring real-time capability to a broad set of scientists and engineers. The LabVIEW Real-Time Module is an add-on component for the LabVIEW development system. When installed, this software compiles LabVIEW graphical code and optimizes it for the selected real-time target.

Achieve Maximum Reliability

With the new LabVIEW Real-Time 7.1 drivers for PXI modular instruments, you now have the capability to quickly design a custom instrument that has all the flexibility and performance of a PC-based instrument as well as the reliability of an embedded RTOS. You can design a custom real-time instrument by simply developing a LabVIEW application on a desktop PC and then deploying it to a PXI real-time target.

A PXI real-time target includes an embedded controller and a PXI chassis containing modular instrumentation and data acquisition devices. The hardware target uses off-the-shelf components such as a microprocessor, RAM, nonvolatile memory, and a PXI I/O bus interface. The embedded software consists of an RTOS, driver software, and a specialized version of the LabVIEW run-time engine.

Autonomous (Stand-Alone) Virtual Instrumentation

Unlike traditional instruments, the architecture of the LabVIEW Real-Time PXI system is not dependent on human interaction, so the system automatically boots up and immediately begins the appropriate application without waiting for a signal from the mouse or keyboard.

With this capability, you can embed LabVIEW Real-Time PXI systems within larger machines or deploy them remotely where they can run autonomously. For example, you can design a LabVIEW Real-Time PXI system in an unmanned submarine to perform machinery monitoring remotely. With these new capabilities, you now can create high-performance custom virtual instruments with maximum reliability
and autonomous operation.

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