Enhanced real-time test software
November 2011
IT in Manufacturing
National Instruments announces NI VeriStand 2011 for real-time and HIL testing.
National Instruments has released NI VeriStand 2011, the latest version of its configuration-based software environment for creating real-time testing and simulation applications including hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulators and test cells. The intuitive, open software interface helps engineers achieve superior system flexibility while decreasing test development time. The new version includes a real-time stimulus profile tool that expands deterministic test execution with looping and branching structures, arithmetic functions, multitasking and more. Engineers can combine NI VeriStand 2011 with Inertia, an add-on from Wineman Technology, which adds a suite of tools to NI VeriStand for optimised closed-loop control of dynamometer and servo-hydraulic-based test cells.
“NI VeriStand 2011 increases test engineers’ flexibility and efficiency, critical for keeping pace with the growing complexity of electromechanical control systems,” says Ian Fountain, HIL and real-time test platform manager at National Instruments. “With its major advancements for real-time test profile generation and test cell automation, engineers can create real-time test systems that will meet both present and future demands with a single off-the-shelf solution.”
The new stimulus profile tool in NI VeriStand 2011 increases test development efficiency and system capabilities by making it possible for engineers to quickly create and re-use sophisticated test profiles. The tool includes an expansive library of structures and operators that significantly decrease test development time and increase test coverage. It also is enhanced with templates for common test routines such as multitasking and data-logging and includes other features specifically designed to broaden test coverage and simplify code reuse in even the most demanding real-time testing applications.
The Wineman Inertia add-on for NI VeriStand 2011 extends the software’s functionality for dynamometer and servo-hydraulic-based test cell applications. When combined with NI VeriStand 2011, Inertia gives engineers advanced closed-loop control with mode switching, dither and other features that are useful for implementing real-time control and test applications. The add-on also includes tools for tuning and monitoring control loops and accounting for mechanical life cycle degradation through amplitude control. Additionally, it builds on the new stimulus profile editor in NI VeriStand to provide an application-specific test editor for more efficient authoring of deterministic stimulus profiles that interface with multiple actuator control loops.
NI VeriStand 2011 also provides expanded native support for 14 modelling environments. This functionality, combined with the other new features, make the software ideal for increasing efficiency capability in any real-time testing applications.
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