Interface aids real-time acquisition on PCI

UEI has created the hardware and software that makes it possible to implement a LabView Real Time target on a standard PCIbus system using the firm's line of high-performance I/O cards.

When they think about a target system for LabView Real Time (LVRT), many engineers think of PXI.

Meanwhile, PCI systems continue to offer exceptional performance at ever lower prices, and they are well suited to serve as LVRT target systems.

Indeed, UEI has created the hardware and software that makes it possible to implement a LVRT target on a standard PCIbus system using the firm's line of high-performance I/O cards.

This announcement brings two major benefits.

First, with a PCI target, users can save 45% or more compared with a PXI variant.

Secondly, for their PCIbus implementation users have a wide choice of I/O among the 50 models of multifunction, simultaneous-sampling, analogue-output and digital I/O cards in the PowerDAQ family.

What makes this possible are the PowerDAQ for LabView Real Time drivers, which ship free of charge with each I/O board from UEI.

The only hardware a user must purchase beyond their PCI target system and PowerDAQ I/O cards is a real-time interface card (Model PD2-LVRT-PCI), which sells for $50.

With LabView Real Time, an engineer develops an application under Windows and then downloads it to a target execution vehicle that runs a special real-time kernel.

The target performs local processing such as closed-loop control, while an Ethernet link maintains communications between the target and the host development system, which also handles tasks such as running a user interface, sophisticated data processing and storage.

In the UEI implementation, users develop an application on a Windows host development system using their LabView Real Time software.

For a target system, users can select virtually any commercially available PCI system as long as it has sufficient free slots: one holds the PD2-LVRT-PCI real-time interface card, which establishes communications between the development and target systems; additional slots hold the user's choice of PowerDAQ I/O cards.

The next step is to boot the target system into the special real-time kernel, which then employs the PD2-LVRT-PCI card to communicate with the development host to download the application and to upload data for display on the host-based user interface as well as for additional processing and storage.

The ability to use PCI hardware in a LabView Real Time setting can save users considerable funds.

Consider the hardware pricing for a PCIbus system running LabView Real Time in conjunction with a 1.25MHz 12bit PowerDAQ card.

These days a user can get a system from Dell with a 2.2GHz Celeron, 128Mbyte of SDRAM and a 40Gbyte hard disk for roughly $500.

Add to this the PD2-LVRT-PCI interface card at $50 and the PD2-MF-16-1M/12 at $1650.

The PD2-MF-16-1M/12 card comes with 16 analogue inputs at 12bit resolution and 1.25Msample/s digitisation rate; it also provides two analogue outputs plus 32 digital I/O points and three user counter/timers.

So the total hardware cost for a UEI PCIbus implementation is $2200.

Compare this price to an equivalent PXI-based system, which consists of a four-slot PXI chassis (NI PXI-1002), LabView Real Time PXI controller card with a 266MHz Pentium (PXI-8145/266 RT) and a PXI-6070E multifunction I/O card, whose specs are nearly the same as the UEI card listed above.

This combination of hardware costs $3985 (and it jumps to $6485 if the user selects a controller with an 866MHz Pentium III).

In other words, for this typical system setup, the 2.2GHz Celeron PCI hardware setup saves the user 45% over the 266MHz Pentium PXI solution, and in the case of the PXI-based Pentium III controller the savings amount to 66%.

Besides offering a cost-effective alternative for PXI targets for LabView Real Time, UEI also offers engineers other LabView innovations.

For example, the PowerDAQ Software Suite ships with free drivers for LabView for Linux.

Unlike National Instruments, which suggests that users go to community-written/supported Linux drivers from groups such as Comedi, UEI offers professionally developed and fully supported drivers so that it's easy and reliable to perform industrial I/O under LabView for Linux.

Giving users yet another alternative, UEI supports another scheme that allows real-time system development under Windows but that uses virtually any desktop PC for its target vehicles: xPC for Matlab.

The necessary PowerDAQ drivers ship along with the xPC package users purchase from The MathWorks.

UEI's real-time support extends even further to include drivers for real-time Linux (either the RTAI or FSMLabs kernels) as well as QNX.

Hard real-time performance is also possible in a distributed environment thanks to the PowerDNA Cubes, which pack 100 to 200 I/O points in a package measuring 4 x 4 x 4in, including a dedicated CPU and Ethernet interface.

The PowerDAQ LabView Real-Time drivers are available at no charge on the PowerDAQ Software Suite CD that ships with each I/O card.

The PD2-LVRT-PCI real-time interface card sells for $50.

Shipment is from stock.

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