NIWEEK 2019 DAY2 Full Analysis: Data and Connections

The second day of NIWEEK 2019 was on time. In his opening remarks, Scott Rust, Vice President of Product Development at NI, said that according to a research report from Harvard Business School, the main reasons for companies to stop growing include loss of focus and loss of innovation. "Current technology trends include Industry 4.0, Internet of Things, machine learning, cloud, virtual and augmented reality, V2X, 5G and other endless technologies that are exploding at the same time. It is difficult to keep up with only one trend, and it is almost impossible to keep up with all technologies." Scott said.

For NI, the most important thing is to extract the most basic commonalities and help customers achieve innovation in various fields by focusing on software-defined platforms. Scott said: "NI is a platform that serves multiple industries, so it can extract basic technologies developed in various industries and combine them for new fields at any time. For example, the application of wireless millimeter waves on semiconductors can be directly applied to V2X and radar fields; secondly, NI's ecosystem is the largest and strongest in the industry. Through a wide range of partners and users, NI's platform is expanded to various fields; thirdly, NI invests 19% of its sales in research and development every year to maintain continuous investment in innovation."

Scott invited Jeff Kodosky, the father of LabVIEW, to discuss the innovation of LabVIEW in the future through a dialogue. Jeff said that as the "map" of the test and measurement field, LabVIEW can learn from the innovation of current map applications in many innovations. For example, route instructions, nearby traffic information, switching between satellite or terrain maps at any time, support for zooming and other functions applied in map vendors can be applied to LabVIEW in the future. In addition, technologies such as machine learning and AR can also be applied to future LabVIEW applications.

Data drives the future, how to drive data?

“Design-to-test integration through data is not a mythical unicorn,” said Shelly Gretlein, NI’s vice president of marketing. “The key to successful digital transformation is to liberate your data. The first step is to ensure that the data is captureable, visualized, and scalable. The second step is to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to collect and process this data.”

To help users make good use of data, NI has invested in more than 1,000 plug-ins to help achieve standardized and unified data.

George Zafiropoulos, vice president of NI solution marketing, used the cooperation between NI and Cadence as an example to explain the charm of data.

Extract results from Cadence simulation and extract results on the laboratory PXI system at the same time. The results of both can be directly reflected in the same view, which can be directly analyzed or debugged.

Infineon is currently adopting this solution in the design of its automotive sensing and control product lines.

Partners from Cognite are using NI’s data capture system to perform data classification and screening, and ultimately DEI Group will conduct accurate data analysis to design a complete VR system that complies with Industry 4.0.

VR System

NI accelerates wireless connectivity

NI continues to expand its presence in the RF field.

Kevin Loughran, vice president of Jabil's wireless business unit, introduced the cooperation between Jabil and NI. He said that the integrated antennas in the 5G era have new requirements for OTA testing.

NI demonstrated a new mmWave test solution. By synchronizing motion control with mmWave VST, we can eliminate most of the unnecessary delays in the test, reducing the test time from 6 minutes to 23 seconds.

As Scott said, NI's platform strategy enables its products to be widely used in various fields.

Warwick uses NI's millimeter wave VST for V2X testing, which has improved test efficiency by more than 40 times compared to existing products.

Infinite Life

In the afternoon's closing speech, NI invited Captain Scott Kelly, a space Internet celebrity and astronaut, to give the engineers present a bowl of the most sincere chicken soup with his own energy. Scott had never thought of becoming an astronaut when he was a child, but he eventually became one of the greatest astronauts in the world. In this regard, he told the engineers: "Being good at the beginning does not mean being good in the end. Only by constantly focusing can you achieve success."

Captain Scott Kelly