National Instruments

About: National Instruments is a company organization based out in Dublin, Ireland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Signal & Interface (computing). The organization has 1135 authors who have published 1719 publications receiving 35682 citations. The organization is also known as: NI & National Instruments Corporation.

Application of LabVIEW in higher education laboratories

Abstract: The LabVIEW software system, which builds instrumentation applications on the Apple Macintosh, is described. Application programs are called virtual instruments (VIs). A VI consists of a front panel and a block diagram. The front panel has ready-to-go controls such as graphs, knobs, and switches. The users selects, moves, and sizes these controls to define a user interface. Behind the front panel is the block diagram, which is the actual executable program. In the block diagrams, icons and other graphical elements are wired together using the graphical programming language 'G' LabVIEW has an inherent hierarchy in that icons representing other VIs are used as functions. Thus LabVIEW has just one building block, the VI, which can be a program or a function. LabVIEW includes ready-to-go VIs for acquisition and analysis. Acquisition VIs support GPIB (general-purpose interface bus), RS-232 and plug-in boards for analog to digital, digital to analog, digital input/output, and timing. Over 100 instrument driver VIs are available for GPIB and RS-232 instruments. Analysis VIs include statistics, digital signal processing, filters, and numerical methods. Users can also write their own VIs. Applications of LabVIEW in engineering laboratories are mentioned. >

High-speed high-resolution ADC for precision measurements

Abstract: A measurement device such as a DMM may include four basic units—an analog circuit path, an analog to digital converter (ADC), a digital filter, and an RMS computation unit. The four basic units may be operable to multiplex or to process one or more of the plurality of channels at the same time. The analog circuit path may include the necessary circuitry for the plurality of channels to couple to one or more analog signals. The analog circuit path may couple to the ADC. The ADC may be operable to receive the one or more analog signals from the analog circuit path and convert it to one or more digital signals. The ADC may include a cascaded ADC, which may include a first ADC and a second ADC. The first and the second ADC and may be able to convert analog data to digital data during a cycle. In one embodiment, the first ADC may generate a conversion result and an error signal. The second ADC may be operable to receive the error signal, digitize the error signal, and process the error signal, thus performing noise cancellation. A summation operation may combine the data from the first ADC and the processed data from the second ADC. The cascaded ADC may consist of a continuous-time 1-bit sigma-delta modulator followed by a SAR ADC. Digital output from sigma-delta modulator may be weighted and summed with the output of the SAR ADC in an FPGA.

System and method for creating a graphical program including a plurality of portions to be executed sequentially

Abstract: A system and method for creating a graphical program including a plurality of portions to be executed sequentially. User input may be received, e.g., during development of the graphical program, wherein the user input indicates a desire to specify a plurality of portions of graphical source code to be executed sequentially. In response, a plurality of frames may be displayed in the graphical program, such that two or more frames from the plurality of frames are visible at the same time. A portion of graphical source code may be included in each frame in response to user input. The plurality of frames may define an execution order for the corresponding portions of graphical source code, such that during execution of the graphical program, the portions of graphical source code are executed sequentially according to this execution order. In the preferred embodiment, all of the frames are visible at the same time, thus giving the program developer a complete view of the graphical program.

Signal approximation via data-adaptive normalized Gaussian functions and its applications for speech processing

Abstract: A signal approximation via data-adaptive normalized Gaussian functions is presented. This approach resembles the traditional Gabor expansion, but it is more precise and efficient. Numerical simulations for the speech signal are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new scheme. >

Automatic generation of help information for specified systems

Abstract: System and method for generating information regarding the functionality of a system. Input specifying at least a portion of functionality of a system may be received, e.g., from a user via a graphical user interface (GUI), and may specify one or more components of the system at a component level. The input may specify one or more components of the system, e.g., software component(s), hardware device(s), function(s) of the system, etc. Information, e.g., help information and/or documentation, describing one or more aspects of the functionality of the system may be automatically generated based on the input. The descriptions of the aspects may include information regarding the synergistic/combinatorial interactions of the components at a system level, e.g., via calculation or derivation from data retrieved from various sources regarding the components of the system. The information may be automatically stored and/or automatically displayed in the GUI substantially in real-time.