Buongiorno

Roberto Isernia – Luigi Giorgi

National Instruments Italy
Riccardo Susini
Thesan Project
Luigi Magni
Pragma Engineering
Riccardo Bellini
Gruppo Nuovamacut
Engineering Grand Challenges

Source: www.engineeringchallenges.org
Automotive Test Challenges
Adaptive Fuel Smart Air Antiglare
Injection Navigation Bag Rear View
Automatic Mirror
Side Air Bag
Transmission
ABS Door
Adaptive Cruise
Control E/E
Suspension
Short
Range
Radar
Adaptive
Headlight
Parking
HUD Assist
Dynamic
Balance Brake by Digitalized Infotainment Tire Pressure
Automatic
Control Wire OBU Display Keyless Monitor
AC
Entry
Control
 Empowering Users Through Software

CERN Large Hadron Collider

LEGO Mindstorms NXT
“the most powerful
“the smartest, coolest toy
instrument on earth”
of the year”
 National Instruments Worldwide
• 40 International Offices

• R & D Centers in 5 Countries

• Global Sales and Support

• Over 600 Alliance Members

2008 Revenue: $821M

Our Vision for Instrumentation Systems

Virtual Instrumentation
“The software is the instrument.”

“To do for test and measurement

what the spreadsheet did for financial analysis.”
US Department of Defense Defines Synthetic Instruments

“A single synthetic instrument can replace numerous single function instruments

thereby reducing the logistics footprint and solving obsolescence problems.”

– Report to Congress on the activities of the DoD Office of Technology Transition,

February 2002
Traditional vs. Virtual Instruments
Traditional Instrumentation Modular Instrumentation

GPIB-, LAN-, USB-based PXI, VXI

Proprietary Processor, OS PC Processor, OS

Firmware Software
Bus Fixed User Interface Bus
Timing and

Timing and

User Interface
Measurement Modular
Control

Control
Subsystem Hardware

Power Supply Shared Power Supply

GPIB, LAN, USB Connectivity GPIB, LAN, USB Connectivity
Virtual Instrumentation
Protocol-Aware ATE

Output
System Emulation
Test Vectors or Protocol Intelligence

response
In-cycle
DUT
Input

Standard ATE Protocol-Aware

Model Communication

Image courtesy of Verigy

Routine pre-defined in test Intelligence embedded into

software FPGA hardware
 NI FlexRIO – Speed and Flexibility
• 1394b
• MIL-STD-1553
• ARINC-429
• Digitizers
• ARB’s
• ….

FlexRIO Adapter Module FlexRIO FPGA Module

• Interchangeable I/O • Up to 132 channels
• Customizable by users • Up to 1 Gb/s per pair
• Module Development Kit • Up to 128 MB of DDR2 DRAM
 Product Development Life Cycle

Measurements in the Design Flow

Target Setting Subsystem Validation End-of-Line

Hardware in the Loop
System ID Calibration
The National Instruments Vision Evolved
Graphical System Design

Test and Measurement Industrial and Embedded

Automated Test Real-time Measurements Industrial Control (PAC)
Data Acquisition Embedded Monitoring Machine Control
Reconfigurable Hardware-in-the-loop Electronic Devices
Instruments Code Generation

DESIGN PROTOTYPE DEPLOY