Test & Measurement World Resource Center

This guide is a collection of white papers designed to help you develop test systems that lower your cost, increase your test throughput, and can scale with future requirements. This white paper describes the difference between a modular instrumentation platform versus a traditonal instrumentation platform.

This series of white papers describe some of the advanced features of the National Instruments High Speed Digital I/O boards. These white papers delve into some of the advantages of these features and how to implement them on the High Speed Digital I/O boards.

Over the past year, the mainstream media has dramatically increased its emphasis on all things "green". Concerns about global climate change, soaring energy prices, and increased government legislation are driving new priorities and expectations - from consumer products to corporate responsibility and sustainability plans. To meet these new demands, companies, big and small, around the world are scrambling to not only create products and technologies that address these concerns but also change the ways and processes by which they are developed. Engineers and scientists worldwide are leading the charge to address one of the largest challenges society faces, and they have the unique opportunity to make a bigger impact on the environment than any government policy. Green engineering provides the tools, techniques, and technologies to foster this innovation.

As the industrial landscape continues to move toward a more automated environment, engineers implementing monitoring and control applications encounter increasingly complex systems. Such industrial control systems often consist of independent Programmable Automation Controllers (PACs) managing specific, individual tasks. As these distributed systems increase in complexity, the control and monitoring tasks must be divided among several such PACs, networked together. Ensuring proper operation of this distributed industrial process requires the direction of system managers and operators. Yet while a central control "hub" is appropriate for managerial supervision, the distributed system is incomplete without Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs) for more direct interaction. The LabVIEW Touch Panel module completes the National Instruments offering for managing remote systems by extending the LabVIEW graphical programming environment to rugged HMI industrial computers. This application note discusses the benefits of the LabVIEW Touch Panel module and provides a detailed step-by-step tutorial for adding an HMI to your existing PAC system.

This paper discusses the top ten things that you should consider if you are considering a new digitizer/oscilloscope.

During manufacturing of electronic systems, blank non-volatile devices must often be programmed with initial data content. This allows the target system to get up and running, and is referred to as "factory programming," "factory pre-programming, or bulk programming." Generally, this is a very straightforward process that has been in place in the industry for many years. However, with NAND flash the process is more difficult.

Boundary-Scan for PCB Interconnect Testing and In-System Device Programming 

A brief overview of boundary-scan architecture and its relation to the JTAG standard. New technology trends that make using boundary-scan essential for dramatically reducing development and production test costs. The various uses of boundary-scan and the tools available today for supporting boundary-scan technology.

The purpose of this application note is to demonstrate how to simulate the phase shift that may be encountered on an AC line when power is applied from a second, “synchronized” source of AC Power. While the power lines are generally locked in frequency, phase shifting can often occur. Shown below are methods used to create a phase shift using Pacific’s UPC-Series Programmable Controller. The goal is to create a sub-cycle offset that can be programmed to occur at any phase angle on the fundamental waveform, and last for a specified number of degrees.

The Fluke 884X is the first precision multimeter to offer a simple method of capturing and displaying measurement changes as small as parts per million in real time, without time-consuming setup or custom programming. This application note explains how TrendPlot™ reduces a time-series of measurements into a form that is easy to store and analyze, while still maintaining detail.

Evaluating Oscilloscopes for Best Signal Visibility 

This application note reviews some of the factors that impact oscilloscope update rates and shows you how to compute probabilities of capturing infrequent events. Plus, it includes side-by-side measurement examples that compare the probabilities of capturing an anomalous event using various vendors' MSOs. Click here to download this application note.