Software and hardware for design, measurement and control For more than 30 years, National Instruments has been a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation - a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging PCs and commercial technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for test, control and design applications through easy-to-integrate software, such as NI LabVIEW, and modular measurement and control hardware for PXI, PCI, PCI Express, USB and Ethernet. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with UK & Ireland headquarters in Newbury, Berkshire, NI has approximately 6300 employees and offices in more than 40 countries. To serve expanding machine and industrial control system development needs, leading automation companies have created a new class of industrial controller known as programmable automation controllers (PACs). PACs combine PLC ruggedness with PC functionality under an open, flexible software architecture. With these controllers, engineers can build advanced systems incorporating software capabilities such as advanced control, communication, data logging, and signal processing with a rugged controller performing logic, motion, process control, and vision. National Instruments LabVIEW software delivers unparalleled flexibility and ease of use in demanding industrial measurement, automation and control applications. Deploy NI LabVIEW programs to networked PACs to create reliable distributed measurement and control systems as well as to connect to existing programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and enterprise systems.