The Instrumentation Revolution
Over 60 years ago, the path of technology was changed with the creation of the transistor. This great invention of the twentieth century has impacted all elements in our lives, and has revolutionized instrumentation itself. Currently, engineers, from research to aerospace and defence, are struggling to build customized solutions with compact and comprehensive tools that provide more flexibility, performance and value; a trend depicted by Gordon E. Moore, Intel co-founder in 1965. And so, we face another crossroad in instrumentation, that follows the exponential curve of Moore’s law; the software revolution.
Testing, from hardware-in-the-loop to automated test, was traditionally achieved through box instruments and manual techniques. As systems become more complex, this method is not longer efficient as it does not allow engineers to obtain the level of flexibility required, the time to focus on results, nor to utilize instruments as they are intended to. Engineers and industrialists needed instruments that allow them to make more complex measurements with more automation.
“With NI software and hardware, we created an automated solution to successfully test antenna operations in just five minutes, which is considerably less time compared to the 30 minutes we needed to manually perform a test. This equates to more than 500 hours saved annually with automated testing” - Peter Aschof, Tel Instrument Electronics Corp.
In 1997, National Instruments (NI) was the first to invent and introduce the PXI platform to the market. The platform consists of a comprehensive integration of modular hardware the PXI and open powerful software such as the NI graphical system design software LabVIEW. The PXI platform, optimized for automating measurements, provides a solution to create more powerful yet cost/time-effective systems for applications such as automated product test to high loop-rate industrial control systems, to RF and
Microwave measurements, rather than traditional box instruments. Since this introduction, NI has been continuously executing to bring innovative paradigms, technologies and products to the test, measurement and control markets. Concepts ranging from Virtual Instrumentation to Graphical System Design and utilizations of technologies ranging from PCI Express to FPGA have helped countless engineers and scientists build their customized solutions. Today, companies in different industry sectors, including aerospace and defence, are shifting to the PXI Platform. For example, Tel Instruments Electronics Corp., was able to reduce testing time of antennas from 30 minutes using traditional instruments, to five minutes when using the NI PXI-based RF devices, saving them more than 500 hours a year:
“With NI software and hardware, we created an automated solution to successfully test antenna operations in just five minutes, which is considerably less time compared to the 30 minutes we needed to manually perform a test. This equates to more than 500 hours saved annually with automated testing” - Peter Aschof, Tel Instrument Electronics Corp.
The Unprecedented Architecture
A Modular, Off-the-shelf Platform
Of the more than 1,500 PXI products on the market, over 600 are designed by National Instruments. More than 600 modular instruments based on PXI and PXI Express technology are in the market. These instruments range from DC to 26.5 GHz, including the industry’s highest resolution digitizer with 24 bits of resolution and the industry’s fastest, most accurate 7½-digit digital multimeter (DMM), in addition to the cutting edge RF hardware, the vector signal transceivers (VSTs).
Synchronization and Flexibility
A fundamental component of the PXI system is the chassis. A PXI chassis incorporates a dedicated 10 MHz system reference clock, PXI trigger bus, star trigger bus, and slot-to-slot local bus, while a PXI Express chassis adds a 100 MHz differential system clock, differential signaling, and differential star triggers to address the need for advanced timing and synchronization. Through shared timing and synchronization, you can vastly improve the accuracy of measurements, apply advanced triggering schemes, or synchronize multiple devices to act as one for extremely high-channel-count applications.
Embedded Controllers
PXI embedded controllers from NI utilize the latest multi-core processors to provide a high-performance, yet compact embedded computer solution for the measurement system. Integrated with the labview sofware, it presents major benefits for programming multi-core processors and other parallel hardware such as fieldprogrammable gate arrays (FPGAs).
Fast and Flexible Data Storage
A variety of high-speed data-streaming devices is offered, ranging from in-chassis and portable products to external rack mount solutions with extended capacities to address the needs of various complex applications such as RF record and playback and IF or baseband streaming.
Leading the Instrumentation Revolution
Returning to Moore’s law, and the exponential increase in instruments capabilities, today, one processing technology revolutionizing the way RF instruments are designed, and automated as well as industrial tests are conducted, is the FPGA. National Instruments is again, the first company to incorporate the FPGA in its platforms to deliver tools with unrivaled performance, flexibility and value, that accelerate productivity, innovation and discovery.
