Flexible, Modular I/O – From Handheld USB to Industrial CompactRIO

Today’s engineers are constantly pressured to speed up design while maintaining high quality. To achieve this, they look for tools that are easy to set up and use, portable, and cost-effective so they can spend less time learning the tools and more time implementing their designs. National Instruments USB-9000 data acquisition devices are an ideal solution for quick, easy, and inexpensive measurement. These devices are palm-sized, portable, plug-and-play data acquisition modules with built-in signal conditioning and sensor-specific connectivity.

The NI USB-9000 devices include a single-slot USB carrier that accepts a C Series module. These C Series modules provide I/O and connectivity for other National Instruments platforms, including the CompactRIO reconfigurable control and acquisition system. Because several I/O platforms use the same modules, engineers benefit from the ability to reuse C Series modules for different systems.

Figure 1 shows the internal circuitry of the NI 9211, a C Series module designed specifically for thermocouple measurements. The module accepts all common types of thermocouples, including J, K, R, S, T, N, E, and B, which connect directly to its detachable screw-terminal block. The module’s internal circuitry includes a 24-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC), antialiasing filters, open-thermocouple detection, and cold-junction compensation. When used with the NI USB-9000 carrier, the measurement data from the module’s ADC travels to a USB microcontroller where it is transferred to a computer.

NI USB-9000 data acquisition devices include a copy of VI Logger Lite data-logging software for simple measurements and data logging. In addition, engineers can take advantage of the power and ease of use of NI-DAQmx driver software to create customized measurement systems by programming these devices with National Instruments LabVIEW software, LabWindows/CVI, Visual Basic, Visual Studio .NET, and C/C++.





Figure 1.The internal circuitry of the NI cRIO-9211 thermocouple measurements module is displayed on the module.


Engineers who require more than a single-slot solution can reuse their C Series modules in an NI CompactRIO chassis (see Figure 2). CompactRIO is powered by NI reconfigurable I/O (RIO) technology and combines a real-time embedded processor with a high-performance FPGA chipset. The RIO core contains built-in data transfer mechanisms to pass data to the embedded processor for communication to a networked host computer (see Figure 3). CompactRIO provides direct hardware access to the I/O circuitry of each C Series module.



[+] Enlarge Image

Figure 2. Engineers can use C Series I/O modules in handheld USB data acquisition devices or as components in CompactRIO systems.



Engineers can save time by taking advantage of the NI USB-9000 plug-and-play connectivity, built-in signal conditioning and terminal block, and ready-to-use data-logging software. In addition, they also can save money by reusing the C Series modules of their NI USB-9000 data acquisition devices in other modular platforms such as CompactRIO. Table 1 shows a list of C Series modules that engineers can use with a carrier as a handheld USB device.

Table 1. Engineers can use these C Series modules as USB data acquisition devices.


Learn more about National Instruments USB data acquisition devices and the NI CompactRIO low-cost reconfigurable control and acquisition system.

5 ratings | 4.80 out of 5

Print

Reader Comments | Submit a comment »