Realizing User-Defined Measurement and Control System Using FPGA

NI LabVIEW is an open and flexible development environment that can seamlessly connect with a variety of industrial hardware, and closely combines configuration-based development methods and programming languages. The NI programmable automation controller (PAC), which combines the reliability of programmable logic controllers (PLCs), PC processing power, and the flexibility of customizable hardware FPGAs, is the core component of the NI industrial automation platform. NI China Technical Market Engineer said that the NI advanced embedded control and acquisition system CompactRIO PAC, supported by NI LabVIEW software, can provide high performance and high reliability for industrial and embedded control applications. It combines an open embedded architecture, reliable FPGAs, and small, rugged, and hot-swappable industrial I/O modules, making it suitable for the design, prototyping, and deployment of measurement and control solutions.

The NI CompactRIO programmable automation controller is a low-cost, reconfigurable control and acquisition system designed for applications that require high performance and reliability. CompactRIO uses reconfigurable I/O (RIO) FPGA technology, and the RIO core has a built-in data transfer mechanism that can transfer data to an embedded processor for real-time analysis, post-processing, data logging, or communication with a networked host. With the basic I/O functions of LabVIEW FPGA, CompactRIO can directly connect hardware to the I/O circuits of each I/O module. Each I/O module has built-in connections, signal conditioning, conversion circuits (ADC or DAC), and optional isolation barriers.

Each CompactRIO I/O module has built-in signal conditioning, including screw terminals, BNC or DSUB connectors, and integrated terminal blocks on the modules, which greatly reduces space requirements and field wiring costs. Because the module's built-in signal conditioning function expands the voltage range or industrial signal type, users can directly connect CompactRIO modules to signal acquisition sensors and actuators according to their actual needs, facilitating the flexible configuration of users' field monitoring solutions.

It is understood that the CompactRIO embedded system includes an industrial-grade 200 MHz Pentium processor for reliable and accurate execution of LabVIEW Real-Time applications. There are more than a thousand built-in LabVIEW functions that can be used to create multi-threaded embedded systems with real-time control, analysis, data logging, and communication functions. More importantly, a large number of third-party resources developed for special applications can be built into it, constantly enriching the CompactRIO embedded system resource library. NI introduced that the resettable embedded system has two configurations: modular and integrated configuration. In the modular configuration, the embedded controller chassis contains the FPGA and can be provided separately according to user needs. The integrated configuration combines the controller and the chassis containing the FPGA in one unit, which is particularly suitable for high-capacity applications due to its excellent system performance.

FPGA's high performance, reconfigurability, small size and low engineering development cost are very popular among control and acquisition system manufacturers, but the high complexity of electronic design tools has formed a technical threshold. Traditionally, the functions of FPGA-based devices are defined by the original manufacturer for users, which makes it difficult to meet the differentiated needs of users. Based on this, NI has established a highly optimized resettable control and acquisition system by introducing FPGA field programmable features, so that users do not need to have specialized hardware design language skills such as VHDL, but only need to use CompactRIO's own customized control or acquisition circuit timing/trigger resolution of up to 25 ns.

Why is it so simple? Because LabVIEW and the LabVIEW FPGA Module provide a graphical development environment for the FPGA chip on NI RIO hardware. By using the LabVIEW FPGA Module, users can develop FPGA programs in a Windows environment, and then use LabVIEW to compile and run these code programs on the hardware.