National Instruments has released Labview 8.5, the latest version of its graphical system design platform for test, control and embedded system development. "Engineers and scientists depend on continually improving PC processors, operating systems and bus technologies to drive increased performance in their measurement and control systems," said Dr James Truchard, National Instruments president, CEO and co-founder. "With the shift toward multicore processors on the PC, Labview programmers benefit from a simplified graphical approach to multithreading, making it possible for engineers and scientists to maximise the performance of multicore technology with little to no change to their applications."
Graphical programming for multicore and FPGA architectures
With the parallel dataflow language of Labview, users can easily map their applications to multicore and FPGA architectures for data streaming, control, analysis and signal processing. Building on the automatic multithreading capability of earlier versions, Labview 8.5 scales user applications based on the total available number of cores and delivers enhanced thread-safe drivers and libraries to improve throughput for RF, high-speed digital I/O and mixed-signal test applications.
Labview 8.5 also delivers symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) with the Labview Real-Time environment where designers of embedded and industrial systems automatically can load balance tasks across multiple cores without sacrificing determinism. With the latest version of Labview, users can manually assign portions of code to specific processor cores to fine-tune realtime systems or isolate time-critical sections of code on a dedicated core. To meet the more challenging debugging and code optimisation requirements of realtime multicore development, engineers and scientists can use the new NI Real-Time Execution Trace Toolkit 2.0 to visually display timing relationships between sections of their code and the individual threads and processing cores where the code is executing.
New module for advanced system modeling
Statecharts are commonly used to design state machines to model the behaviour of realtime and embedded systems to depict event occurrences and responses for digital communication protocols, machine controllers and system-protection applications. Labview 8.5 adds a new statechart module to help engineers and scientists design and simulate these event-based systems using familiar, high-level statechart notations based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) standard.
Because the Labview Statechart Module is based on the Labview graphical programming language, engineers and scientists have a single platform to design, prototype and deploy their systems quickly, combining familiar statechart notation with real-world I/O running on deterministic realtime or FPGA-based systems.
Improved measurement and control for machine builders
With Labview, engineers and scientists can integrate existing PLC-based industrial systems with more advanced programmable automation controllers (PACs), adding high-speed I/O and complex control logic to their industrial systems. Labview 8.5 adds a wide array of I/O, measurement and display enhancements for building PAC-based industrial systems including a new library of OPC drivers that expands industrial connectivity for Labview users, nearly doubling the number of compatible programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and industrial devices.
Labview 8.5 also adds vibration and order tracking measurements and machine vision algorithms for industrial machine monitoring systems. For high-channel-count systems, the new multivariable editor makes it easy for users to quickly and easily configure or edit hundreds of I/O tags using a simple spreadsheet interface. Additionally, the latest version of Labview introduces new flexible pipe display tools to simplify the process for building more realistic industrial user interfaces and an interactive drag-and-drop approach to tie I/O tags directly to user interface displays running on Windows CE-based industrial touch panels and handheld PDAs.
Readers interested in learning more about Labview 8.5 and downloading the evaluation software can visit www.ni.com/labview.
For more information contact National Instruments South Africa, 0800 203 199, +27 (0)11 805 8194, [email protected], www.ni.com
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version