Drivers In Labview For Dummies

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Aug 20, 2015. As experts in PC-based measurement and automation, National Instruments provides software and hardware products – including NI LabVIEW, more than 80 measurement hardware devices, and driver software for data acquisition and GPIB products – to create virtual instruments on Mac OS X.

Labview drivers download


Plug and Play instrument drivers, which simplify control of and communication with your instruments through a standard and straightforward programming model for all drivers, are easier to use and modify than other instrument driver technologies.
A Plug and Play instrument driver is a set of functions used to control and communicate with a programmable instrument. Each function corresponds to a programmatic operation such as configuring, reading from, writing to, and triggering the instrument. Plug and Play instrument drivers comply with programming guidelines. Because Plug and Play drivers maintain a common architecture and interface and include application examples, you can quickly and easily connect to and communicate with your instruments with very little or no code development. Moreover, with the standard programming model of Plug and Play instrument drivers, you can easily add instruments to your test system without worrying about learning new communication protocols or spending time understanding new programming paradigms.
Plug and Play instrument drivers provide source code native to the development environment. With access to source code, you can modify, customize, optimize, debug, and add functionality to the instrument driver. Source code also enables Plug and Play instrument drivers to be cross-platform, so you can use them in any operating system that works with LabVIEW or LabWindows/CVI software.
In addition, Plug and Play instrument drivers that meet National Instruments requirements do not rely on constantly changing technology such as Microsoft technologies. Instead, these instrument drivers are long-term test solutions that have featured compatibility for more than 15 years. With Plug and Play instrument drivers, you can use an instrument driver from 1992 in your test application today instantly with little or no code modification.
National Instruments supports certified Plug and Play instrument drivers.
Plug and Play (project-style)
With the introduction of the LabVIEW 8 Project and the LabVIEW 8 Library, instrument driver developers now can organize functional VIs and example programs directly in the LabVIEW environment. Along with organizational benefits, the LabVIEW Library provides a unique namespace for the instrument driver that automatically adds the instrument driver name to the beginning of every functional VI name. With a unique name for each VI, you no longer need to worry about naming conflicts resulting in broken code. Finally, you also can use the Library to define VIs as either public and accessible to all users or private and usable only by the developer. With the ability to control which VIs are usable, you can maintain a consistent public VI interface while changing the underlying private VIs without fear of breaking the user’s code. Plug and Play (project-style) instrument drivers include all the long-established features of Plug and Play drivers.
National Instruments supports certified Plug and Play (project-style) instrument drivers.
You should continue to use Plug and Play instrument drivers in existing applications created with those drivers. For new projects, use Plug and Play (project-style) instrument drivers to take advantage of the latest LabVIEW features.

Labview

Alright, you certainly have a technical background but do you already know anything about Control Design and Simulation? If you don't, as I did, you will probably be interested in this short tutorial demonstrating how to use the Control Design and Simulation Module for NI LabVIEW. This is not intented to teach you Control Theory but rather to give you an idea of what is possible in terms of control with LabVIEW.

In this tutorial comprising exercices, you will discover how to implement a PID controller for the NI ELVIS/ Quanser QNET DC Motor (http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/210175).

1. Tutorial

Labview device drivers

You will find all the required instructions in the following documents: Control & Simulation Tutoria.pdf, Updated Exercise Instructions.pdf.

2. Hardware

To follow this tutorial completely, you will need the device NI ELVIS I or II (preferred) and the Quanser QNET DC Motor Board. If you do not pocess these items, do not panic, you will be able to follow the tutorial anyway and will just have to skip the last exercise. If you want to have more information about the ELVIS-DC Motor board system, please have a look at the QNET User Manual attached below.

3. Software

As you probably already guessed, you will need to have LabVIEW installed with the DAQmx driver and the Control Design and Simulation Module for LabVIEW. Knx ets download.

However, if you do not have this module, it does not mean that you cannot implement a controller at all but simply not as it is proposed in this tutorial. For other implementation options, please refer to the article 'Overview of Control Implementation Options'.

4. Conclusion

Labview Device Drivers

Have fun!