Top 10 Reasons to Use NI ELVIS II

NI ELVIS II is a primary component of the NI Electronics Education Platform along with NI Multisim, the leading tool for SPICE simulation and schematic capture and NI LabVIEW. The Electronics Education Platform helps teach circuit design concepts better by bridging the gap between theory and real world. Students can simulate the theoretical concepts in Multisim, prototype the actual circuit with NI ELVIS and compare the simulation with real-world measurements with LabVIEW and LabVIEW SignalExpress. With NI ELVIS II and Multisim 10.1, learning circuits becomes more interactive with features such as 3D NI ELVIS II and the ability to access the NI ELVIS II instruments inside Multisim

NI ELVIS II includes 12 of the most commonly used laboratory instruments including scope, DMM, function generator, variable power supply, dynamic signal analyzer (DSA), bode analyzer, 2-wire and 3-wire current-voltage analyzer, arbitrary waveform generator, digital reader/writer and impedance analyzer. This compact, yet powerful assortment of instruments translates to cost-savings for the lab, both in terms of lab space as well as lower maintenance costs. In addition, since the NI ELVIS instruments as all designed using LabVIEW graphical system design language, educators can quickly customize the instruments to meet their specific needs.

NI ELVIS II is based on the industry-leading graphical system design environment, NI LabVIEW. LabVIEW offers educators the ability to teach concepts with a block-diagram or an actor-oriented approach. For example, since the NI ELVIS instruments are Virtual Instruments or VIs they can be accessed inside the LabVIEW environment (akin to function blocks). Educators can take advantage of this feature in order to create custom instruments as well as leverage the other powerful programming features that LabVIEW provides to design, prototype and deploy full-scale systems.

NI ELVIS and LabVIEW have been used successfully by educators worldwide to setup distance learning platforms. Remote panels in LabVIEW enable educators to make VIs available online through the internet that can be accessed by a student anywhere, thus making it easy to demonstrate concepts and perform experiments in a distance learning setting. Educators such as Dr. Barry Paton from Dalhousie University have also setup cameras to view the actual circuit on the NI ELVIS, again using the world wide web.

NI ELVIS II is an open architecture, enabling leaders in other areas such as control design, MCU/Embedded, or telecommunications to build add-on modules that professors can use to teach concepts with. These extensions to NI ELVIS II and the ease-of-use of the LabVIEW software make NI ELVIS II an ideal multidisciplinary engineering platform. Use the NI ELVIS II to teach engineering concepts in circuit design, measurements & instrumentation, control design, telecommunications and embedded design for different departments, including electrical, computer, biomedical, mechanical and aerospace engineering and physics.

NI ELVIS II provides a true out-of-the-box experience for the educator. With prewritten curriculum from Universities worldwide available for free download, getting started with NI ELVIS II in the classroom is a snap. Educators can also modify these labs to suit their own curriculum/laboratory exercises and further use the NI Community to share these labs with other professors. Included with each lab are handouts as well as example VIs where applicable.

NI ELVIS II can be used to teach control design concepts by taking advantage of the different plug-in boards created by Quanser, a leader in control design training systems for academia. Quanser currently offers three plug-in boards for NI ELVIS II – the QNET DC Motor, QNET HVAC trainer system and the QNET Inverted Pendulum. With the included VIs and Curriculum, Educators can now teach the basics of control design with NI ELVIS II and Quanser and use real experiments to bring the control design concepts such as PID and Root Locus to reality.

The Emona Instruments DATEx telecommunications trainer is an NI-ELVIS plug-in module that enables a unique, hands-on approach to teaching introductory telecommunications concepts.  With the DATEx, students can build live communications systems in hardware by wiring together circuit blocks using patch cables. The DATEx includes over 20 circuit blocks for fundamental communications operations and connectivity to NI-ELVIS I/O.  After building a circuit, students can apply the signal generation and measurement capability of LabVIEW and NI-ELVIS platform to explore the system. The DATEx kit includes pre-written labs that engage students with a hands-on experience to teach analog and digital communications concepts including AM, FM, DSB, SSB, PAM, PCM, PWM, speech, SNR, equation modeling, sampling, TDM, PCM, ASK, FSK, BPSK, QPSK, QAM, DSSS, noise generation and more.

Microcontrollers and Embedded processors are becoming increasingly prevalent in industry. Educators can take advantage of the Freescale MCU plug-in board for the NI ELVIS II In order to teach designing and testing of MCU systems. The plug-in board includes an integrated  HCS12(x)/HCS08 USB Pod. The Freescale modules that educators can plug-in to this board include MCUs from the family of HCS08, HCS12/HCS12x/DSP, Coldfire processors, and RF Transceivers. The kit also includes Freescale Codewarrior software that can be used to program the MCUs and because the board is built for NI ELVIS II, educators can leverage the 12 integrated instruments to test the different parameters such as operating voltage, and measure the variables thus providing the complete design, prototype and deploy experience that they would experience in the industry.

Bioinstrumentation, a required course for all Biomedical engineering students focuses on teaching the theory, design and prototyping of circuits and working with sensors and instrumentation. NI ELVIS II and its integration with Multisim 10.1 that include features such as 3D NI ELVIS II, and simulated/real instruments in Multisim 10.1, provides the ideal platform for  teaching bioinstrumentation. The included courseware for bioinstrumentation includes topics on both circuit design and instrumentation and can be customized to suit any individual curriculum.