Introduction to LabView
Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) is a system-design platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments.
Basic Things you will Study in this Tutorial:
•Advantages Of Labview
•Features of Labview
•Key points about LabView
Advantages Of Labview
There are lot of advantages involved in Labview which were discussed below.
•Graphical User Interface (UI).
•Hierarchical design and modular design.
•Drag-and-drop functionalities.
•Professional development tools.
•Multiple high-level development tools.
•Preserves investment and reduces cost.
•Multi-platforms
•Instrument and connectivity control.
•Scalability and flexibility.
•Visualization capabilities.
•Distributed development.
•Compiled languages for fast execution.
•Rapid development with express technology.
Features of Labview
The Important features of Labview were discussed below:
•It comes with support for RS485, RS232, GPIB, VXI, PXI, and plug-in DAQ devices.
•It offers easy interfacing with RF and additional hardware by using different drivers offered by NI.
•By using TCP/IP networking and ActiveX bull, you can easily create executable applications and shared libraries.
•Interfacing with C and .net programming languages.
•Easy to use Graphical User Interface (GUI) based on drag and drop functionality.
Key points about LabView
LabVIEW does make certain things more efficient which can reduce your training or development time and cost. Where LabVIEW excels is:
•Developer efficiency – Being graphical and being a high-level language means that (with the right training) developers can be very efficient. A large number of application-specific toolkits such as sound and vibration analysis, electrical power analysis, or digital filter design also reduce the time to develop applications.
•Hardware support – LabVIEW has excellent support for NI hardware but also a vast array of different buses and protocols for other equipment such as serial, Modbus, TCP, OPC, and many others. We can find a way to make it talk to LabVIEW.
•Desktop and Embedded from one platform – Normally embedded targets such as real-time operating systems or FPGAs require a different skill set to develop. LabVIEW makes it possible for one developer to work with all three increasing the capabilities of the system.
•LabVIEW was designed to support a laboratory atmosphere and it will be targeted for applications to manage and monitor instrumentation. To support this effort, atomic number 28 features a wide variety of hardware interfaces and meters to change LabVIEW programs for monitoring and management equipment. Signals from the hardware interfaces will be scan directly by the program and also the knowledge acted upon. There are some other Important things i.e., simulation controls, file read/write logic gate controls. Knowing the engineering behind the method to be controlled and measured is as necessary as knowing LabVIEW.
•LabVIEW is employed to check varied instrumentation, like RF modules to verify the RF output power at intervals specifications. The meter provides measurements which will be scan by the program, which compares the measured power to the specification. The output will be files or any of the visual displays and graphs enclosed within the controls menu.
•It can be simply built and deploy the Internet services either by using VI the project or by employing a VI offered by LabView. LabView offers G Apis (Google APIs), which may be accustomed to open a project, and each member outlined at intervals the project. you’re additionally allowed to open a project programmatically by VI the invoke node. Moreover, you’ll be able to additionally access the targets outlined in an exceedingly project VI the property node.
•Apart from this, LabView additionally offers VIs, that area unit capable of making a build specification outlined on each target. you’ll get several ways with the to invoke node by that you’ll be able to deploy the build specifications. Then the libraries enclosed associate exceedingly project may also be deployed through an invoke node VI the ‘Deploy Library’ perform outlined within the application category.
Important Panels used in LabVIEW
LabVIEW applications out of Virtual Instruments (VIs) which are our building blocks. These can be part of a toolkit library or custom made by the developer.
•Front Panel: The Front Panel which provides the user interface including controls and indicators for different data types such as numbers or text. LabVIEW comes with a selection of displays for these, for example, a number might be on a graph or a gauge.
•Block Diagram: The Block Diagram which is where we write the code. This contains different “nodes” or functions that have inputs and outputs. The developer drops these nodes and wires inputs to outputs to define the functionality. This graphical display is key. Rather than running depending on the layout (i.e. top to bottom in a text-based application), the LabVIEW compiler will allow each node to run as soon as all of it’s inputs are available. We call this data flow, and it makes LabVIEW easier to follow than text-based code and allows the compiler to optimize our system to run on parallel or multi-core hardware.
•Code descriptions and comments will merely be earned together with the print out of codes by the ‘VI Documentation’ choice out there within the LabView print menu. with the exception of this, you can merely use the NI Specifications entryway for highly developed documentation. This can offer traceable links to the specification documentation.
Specifications for LabView code
The requirements specifications with the assistance of NI requires entryway. This application permits you to trace the aides and needs throughout the method of impact analysis whenever any reasonable modifications are necessary. with the exception of this, you can also get insight into valuable metrics like demand coverage by using this tool.
State Machine and Formula Node in LabView
A state machine is one of the basic elements or architectures utilized by the LabView developers to create applications. The node wherever you are allowed to write down mathematical expressions and formulas a bit like C coding.
Interfacing the Labview with JAVA user interface by following the below steps:
•The TCP/IP protocols used to communicate between Java and Labview.
•Then merely build DLL from your Labview code and decision perform it bu using JNI.
•After that, implement web service by using the LabVIEW and it is known as Java.