Measurement and control technologies at Advanced Manufacturing

For example, the NI CompactRIO programmable automation controller (PAC) is a low-cost reconfigurable control and acquisition system for applications requiring high performance and reliability. The system combines an open, embedded architecture with small size, extreme ruggedness, and hot-swappable industrial I/O modules. CompactRIO is powered by reconfigurable I/O (RIO) field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology.

LabVIEW 2010 enables engineers and scientists to interface rapidly and cost-effectively with measurement and control hardware, as well as analyse data, share results and distribute systems through intuitive graphical programming. With advanced compiler technology and automatic multithreading, LabVIEW 2010 is the latest release in over 20 years of innovation, and provides a complete development environment for scientists and engineers to design, prototype and deploy complex applications. Using NI LabVIEW 2010, hardware such as CompactRIO can be integrated into larger distributed systems, synchronised using protocols such as IEEE 1588 or EtherCAT.

Designed for performance, NI data acquisition (DAQ) devices provide I/O capability, measurement accuracy and software flexibility. With patented hardware and software technologies, National Instruments offers PC-based measurement and control systems that deliver increased productivity through user-defined logging, analysis, and visualisation. Customers can choose from a variety of common PC buses and form factors, including USB, PCI, PCI Express, PXI, PXI Express, wireless and Ethernet. NI-DAQmx multithreaded driver software provides ease of use, flexibility, and performance in multiple programming environments, including NI LabVIEW, NI LabWindows/CVI, C/C++, Visual C#, and Visual Basic .NET.

The NI machine vision platform includes a range of hardware options, from embedded NI Smart Cameras that integrate the sensor and processor in a single package, to NI Embedded and NI Compact Vision Systems, and plug-in boards for PCI and PXI systems. Software options include image acquisition software for acquiring images from thousands of cameras, a world-class image processing library, and a configurable interface for industrial machine vision applications.

NI motion control software and hardware simplifies the development of motion control applications and delivers easy integration with NI data acquisition and vision products. From automating test equipment and research labs, to controlling biomedical, packaging and manufacturing machines or even complex robotics, engineers and scientists use NI motion to solve a diverse set of application challenges, faster and at a lower cost.

Visit NI on stand 1935 at Advanced Manufacturing 2011 to find out more about the technologies highlighted above. Alternatively, use the form on this page to request more information.