LabVIEW 8.6 Streamlines Embedded System Development

By DE Editors

At NI Week, National Instruments (NI; Austin, TX)  announces LabVIEW 8.6, the latest version of its graphical system design software platform for control and test, prototyping, and deployment of embedded system development. This version combines the graphical programming environment of LabVIEW with commercial off-the shelf (COTS) multicore and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware to improve the performance and time to market of embedded systems.

LabVIEW 8.6 introduces new intellectual property (IP) tools that lower the barrier to developing FPGA-based embedded systems as well as optimized analysis functions that provide faster execution on multicore systems.

Engineers also can improve the time to market of embedded applications by deploying their LabVIEW 8.6 applications to COTS reconfigurable I/O (RIO) hardware, including NI CompactRIO and the new NI Single-Board RIO platform.

IP Tools
With new LabVIEW FPGA 8.6 features and NI FPGA-based hardware, engineers can reduce development time and cost by using hundreds of graphical FPGA IP blocks for signal processing, control and communications. LabVIEW 8.6 offers new fixed-point IP including a fast Fourier transform (FFT) IP core that helps engineers offload spectral analysis functions for increased performance in applications such as machine condition monitoring and RF test. To improve FPGA development efficiency, LabVIEW 8.6 provides a new Component-Level IP (CLIP)  Node to easily import existing VHDL IP into the LabVIEW FPGA Module. With new system-level simulation in LabVIEW, engineers can evaluate the behavior of the complete system including the FPGA, microprocessor and host interface code. In addition, engineers can simulate the interaction of an embedded device with its surrounding environment by using static data input profiles or dynamic system models.

Reconfigurable I/O Hardware
Using LabVIEW 8.6 and new NI RIO embedded hardware, engineers and scientists can rapidly prototype their advanced control algorithms and embedded applications on flexible hardware such as CompactRIO and deploy their systems to board-level embedded hardware such as the new NI Single-Board RIO devices to get to market quickly. Because LabVIEW includes all of the middleware tools, engineers can program the real-time processor, FPGA, and reconfigurable I/O of NI RIO hardware with a single graphical tool to ease development and shorten time to market. The LabVIEW platform also can be extended to the ARM 7, ARM 9, and Cortex-M3 microcontrollers using the NI LabVIEW Embedded Module for ARM Microcontrollers and to select ADI Blackfin processors using the NI LabVIEW Embedded Module for ADI Blackfin Processors.

Multicore Processors
LabVIEW 8.6 multicore capabilities meet performance-intensive embedded application challenges such as hardware-in-the-loop simulation and high-energy physics. To increase application performance, LabVIEW 8.6 delivers more than 1,200 advanced analysis functions optimized to provide faster execution on multicore systems. Using control design, engineers can execute model-based simulations up to five times faster on multicore systems with the multicore-optimized LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation Module 8.6.

Readers interested in LabVIEW 8.6 (priced from $1199) can download evaluation software from NI. Members of the LabVIEW service maintenance and support program will automatically receive LabVIEW 8.6 in the mail or can download the new version at the Services Resource Center.

For all further details, contact National Instruments.

Sources:  Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.