Programme expands popularity of TEDS smart sensors

Participants in the Sensors Plug and Play Programme continue to develop and release innovative, timesaving data acquisition products that support transducer electronic datasheet (TEDS) smart sensors.

National Instruments and leading sensor manufacturers participating in the Sensors Plug and Play Programme continue to develop and release innovative, timesaving data acquisition products that support transducer electronic datasheet (TEDS) smart sensors.

During the last 18 months, this collaboration with vendors such as Honeywell-Lebow Products, Watlow and PCB Piezotronics has delivered more than 3200 TEDS sensors and measurement systems that work with the IEEE1451.4 standard.

The standard specifies technology that simplifies system setup and improves sensor accuracy by digitally storing sensor parameters on an embedded EEPROM chip.

"Since joining the Sensors Plug and Play Programme, we now install TEDS in 90% of our products", said Kerby Hull, Regional Sales Manager with Honeywell-Lebow Products, a leading manufacturer of torque sensing and force measurement equipment.

"We have shipped 3000 sensors with TEDS installed and 3500 sensors with virtual TEDS, a trend that reflects the wider acceptance of smart TEDS sensors".

"We believe this growth is a direct result of the significant efficiency gains that engineers and scientists achieve by combining easy-to-use, timesaving plug-and-play sensors with high-quality data acquisition hardware".

Engineers and scientists can see significant increase in productivity and fewer data entry errors by integrating TEDS sensors into their applications.

TEDS-compatible hardware automatically read information engineers and scientists once had to enter by hand - including sensor-specific scaling and calibration parameters as well as vendor information - directly from the sensor.

National Instruments LabView software was the first general-purpose application software to fully support the IEEE1451.4 standard.

By using the free TEDS library for the LabView environment, more than 30 sensor vendors offering a broad range of analogue sensors now program their smart TEDS sensors in the same development environment, creating a common platform for the implementation of the standard.

Because sensors products created by Sensors Plug and Play Programme members offer tight integration with NI LabView application development software, engineers and scientists not only simplify their hardware setup with TEDS but also streamline their software development.

Engineers using legacy sensors can take advantage of smart sensors by downloading free "virtual TEDS" files for use with LabView software via the NI website and program their smart TEDS sensors in a single development environment.

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