Softcover

ISBN 10: 013019963X ISBN 13: 9780130199638

Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR, 2000

Contains dozens of the best real-world LabVIEW applications in leading test and measurement markets, with detailed explanations of design, implementation, and results. Every application offers a detailed solution to a common test/measurement challenge. Softcover. DLC: Engineering instruments--data processing.

From the Inside Flap:

Preface

A cursory glance into a test lab 20 years ago likely revealed a nondescript computer connected by a standard cable to a bulky electronic instrument. The computer helped its owner write and print reports and maybe do some analysis, but traditional instruments, oscilloscopes, and multimeters did the brunt of the measurement work.

In those early years of computer-based measurement and automation, the desktop computer, linked by the General Purpose Interface Bus (GPIB), played an auxiliary role; however, the increasingly powerful PC has changed all of that. Today, the PC can acquire, analyze, and present data at increasing frequencies, resolutions, and sampling rates. PCs, which now perform tasks 1,000 times more quickly than their predecessors of just 10 years ago, can perform more specialized and complex work in vastly different industries. Engineers and scientists have capitalized on this increasing ability of modern PCs and the highly productive software and hardware that now runs on these machines to monitor everything from the human heart to computer chips to cell phones.

For more than 20 years, National Instruments? has provided engineers and scientists with the hardware and software that has made the PC at home in the test lab and the manufacturing floor. With National Instruments tools, engineers now can place the computer at the center of complex measurement and automation systems, and by doing so, they have lowered their costs. Growth of standard computer technology, fueled by consumer demand in the 1980s and 1990s, increased productivity in the lab and on the manufacturing floor. Upgrading complex measurement equipment no longer meant purchasing expensive controllers and instruments dedicated to specific tasks. Instead, engineers and scientists could use desktop computers for thousands of dollars less than traditional equipment.

The equipment that National Instruments has offered for more than 20 years has come ready to interface with National Instruments flexible software. Data acquisition and signal conditioning devices, instrument control interfaces, image acquisition, motion control, and industrial communication devices make changing the type of measurement as simple as switching the hardware device connected to your computer.

Now, the National Instruments computer technology that has lowered costs and increased productivity brings the dramatic benefits of the Internet to work for engineers and scientists. They can use computers with minimal effort to easily share data with their peers across the street or across the world. Engineering students in classroom laboratories can use a computer-based instrument to interact with and learn from equipment in labs and manufacturing facilities that lie miles away from the classroom or laboratory.Objective Of This Book

While National Instruments products have a wide range of applications, this book provides a broad outline of the industries that have especially embraced computer-based measurement and automation. In the telecommunications, semiconductor, automotive, and biomedical industries, the use of PC-based measurement and automation tools is a growing trend that meets the demands of these industries.

National Instruments and its customers continue to develop application-specific tools for these fast-changing industries. New solutions that closely match industry needs are constantly being developed. This book includes a small sample of some of the latest work done with National Instruments products. The papers published in this book demonstrate how National Instruments software and hardware can solve many different problems. Perhaps these papers will inspire instructors, scientists, students, and hardware and software developers who work in the fields discussed in these pages to find new ways to solve their own unique problems.Organization of This Book

This book is divided by industry into five main parts: Automotive, Biomedical, Semiconductor, Telecommunications, and General Test. Each section breaks down the general trends in each industry and describes how National Instruments can meet the unique challenges in each area. The book then presents papers written by users of National Instruments tools.

From the Back Cover:

The complete LabVIEW solutions reference for every leading vertical market!

• Dozens of practical, detailed LabVIEW applications from the world's leading implementers!
• Broad coverage! Telecom, automotive, semiconductor, biomedical, and general test/measurement
• Start-to-finish explanations: approach, implementation, and results.

National Instruments Virtual Instrumentation Series

Many test and measurement books focus on theory: this one focuses totally on applications. You'll find dozens of the best real-world LabVIEW applications in leading test and measurement markets, with detailed explanations of design, implementation, and results. Every application offers a unique, detailed solution to a common test/measurement challenge, with diagrams, expert advice, and hands-on problem-solving techniques from experienced LabVIEW users.

The applications encompass virtually all key markets for test and measurement, including telecom, semiconductor, automotive, biomedical, and more:

• Automotive: Inverter durability testing, machine vision, exhaust simulations, and in-vehicle data acquisition
• Biomedical: Cardiovascular analysis, PC-based vision systems, and patient monitoring
• Semiconductor: Modeling of quantum atomic state transitions, electron beam physical vapor deposition, X-ray photolithography, and data acquisition
• Telecommunications: Antenna measurement, protocol analysis, remote fiber optics diagnostics, real-time algorithm testing, and more
• General test & measurement: Micromachining, nuclear fusion, and advanced industrial and military research

Whatever your application, whatever your LabVIEW experience, here are the practical insights, techniques and code you need to build world-class virtual instrumentation systems of your own.