Graphical System Design for Prototyping and Deploying Embedded Systems

Vaibhav VashishtTechnical Marketing Engineer, National Instruments

Company Introduction• Leaders for 36 years in Graphical System

Design• Direct Operations in 40+ Countries• 5,500+ Employees• R&D Investment: 16% of Annual Income • Corporate Headquarters in Austin, Texas

Vacuum Tube Transistor(Integrated Circuit)

Software

1920

Evolution of Instrumentation Tools

General Radio

Hewlett Packard

National Instruments

1965 2010

PC-Based DAQ

Modular Instruments

Virtual InstrumentationThe Software is the Instrument

Test, measurement, data acquisition systems.

Single Board RIO

Graphical System DesignA Platform-Based Approach for Measurement and Control

Virtual Instrumentation, Embedded Control, Monitoring, Robotics and more.

CompactRIO

PXI and Modular Instruments

Desktops and PC-Based DAQ

RIO and Custom Designs

Test Monitor Embedded Control Cyber Physical

Open Connectivity with 3rd Party I/O

Graphical System DesignA Platform-Based Approach

Dataflow C / HDL Code Textual Math Simulation Statechart

Personal Computers PXI Systems CompactRIO Custom DesignSingle-Board RIO

LabVIEW

``

Real-Time

LabVIEW

Desktop

LabVIEW

FPGA

LabVIEW

MPU/MCU

Software Design to Hardware Deployment

Integration of Modular I/O and Commercial Technologies

PXI Modular Instruments Box Instruments

Faster System Development

Integrated System Platform Integrating Components

Application Software

Driver API

Device Drivers

Board Support Package (BSP)

Diversity of Applications

“The Long Tail” of Embedded Design

Domain Experts**• >400,000 design projects• 1 developer/ many projects• Millions of scientist and engineers• 6 to 18 mos. development cycle• Many designs 100-1000 units

Embedded Experts*• ~200,000 design projects• 5 to 12 engineers/project• ~500,000 embedded design engineers• 14 to 24 mos. development cycle• 20% of designs 80% of units•>50% of designs < 10,000 units

*VDC, EE Times, techinsights**NI Estimates

National Instruments’ Focus in EmbeddedAreas of Innovation

National Instruments’ Focus in EmbeddedIndustries and Applications That Require…

•High-speed, high-resolution, and specialty Analog Measurements

•Advanced algorithms for control and/or signal processing

•Performance of custom hardware

•Fast Time-to-market

“The Long Tail” Monitoring & Control Options

PC/SBCPLC

CustomBuild

Buy

Combination

Build versus Buy

Build•Custom HW/SW solution•Use a lot of in-house resources•Long lead times for new product•Ability to get exactly what you want

Buy•Off-the-shelf HW/SW solution•Use less resources because systems are pre-built•Better responsiveness to your customers •Often get more than you need

Build versus Buy

Volume per year

Cost

100 1000 10000

Buy

Build

…

The Complexity of Custom Design• Hardware and software costs• Mechanical components (nonelectronic)• EDA development tool costs• Design specification and component

selection• Prototyping• Hardware design• Hardware test and verification• Software development• Software test and verification• Mechanical design• Manufacturing setup and tooling• Manufacturing test

• Compliance and environmental engineering

• Documentation, training, and customer support

• Inventory management and EOL issues• Sustaining engineering• Opportunity cost

Custom Requires Large Specialized Teams

Software Designers FPGA

DesignersCustom IC Designers

ASIC Designers

Mechanical Designers

Domain Experts

Commercial Off-the-Shelf Technologies• Faster Time-to-Market

– Extend time-in-market– Start on next project sooner– More responsive to customer demands

• Lower development and maintenance costs• Lower life-cycle management cost• Reduced costs and risk over time

– “Hidden Costs” are taken care of for you• Eases migration paths to future technologies

Design Approaches

COTS CustomReconfigurable I/O

Hybrid Design ApproachRIO Technology = Custom + Off-the-Shelf

CompactRIOPXI RIO PCI RIO

Single-BoardRIO

CompactRIOIntegrated

CompactRIO & Single-Board RIO

NI RIO Technology Platform

PXI,PC RIO (R Series, FlexRIO)

Value

Value Ultra Rugged Performance High Performance

LabVIEWLabVIEW Real-Time

LabVIEW FPGA

Processor FPGAI/OI/O

Custom I/O

I/O

Application IPSignal Processing IP

Control IPThird-Party IP

MiddlewareDriver APIs

Device DriversI/O Drivers

•Intel, Freescale, Wind River•Multi-core and real-time technology

Processor

•PCI/PCIe, Enet, USB, wireless, deterministic Enet•Open architecture

Bus•Xilinx Virtex & Spartan•Reconfigurable hardware

FPGA

•Control & signal processing IP & I/O drivers•Built-in graphical IP, integrate existing IP

IP

•Analog Devices, Texas Instruments•Connect to any sensor & actuator

I/O

COTS Advantage

CompactRIO

Single-Board RIO

Multicore CompactRIO

PC RIO / R Series

PXI / FlexRIO

Processor FPGAI/OI/O

Custom I/O

I/O

NI RIO Technology Curve

NEWNEW

NI RIO Hardware Matrix

Processor Performance Up to 400MHz Up to 800 MHz Up to 1.33 GHz Dual-Core Up to 2.26 GHz Quad-Core

FPGA Performance Up to 43,661 logic cells, up to 58 multipliers

Up to 110,592 logic cells, up to 64 multipliers

Up to 147,443 logic cells, up to 180 multipliers

Up to 94,208 logic cells, up to 640 multipliers

Analog I/O Speed Up to 1 MS/s Up to 1 MS/s Up to 1 MS/s Up to 2 GS/s

Operating System Real-Time OS Real-Time OS Window/Real-Time OS Windows/Real-Time OS

Ruggedness -20 to 55° C*, passively cooled

-40 to 70° C, passively cooled

0 to 55° C, passively cooled

0 to 55° C, actively cooled

Size Starts at 17.8x9.3x8.7 cm.3* Starts at 18x9.3x8.7cm.3 Starts at 40.4x13.4x8.7 cm.3 Starts at 25.7x21.4x18.4 cm.3

Target Application Examples

• Smart grid analyzer• Environmental Monitoring

• Mobile robotics• Medical diagnostics &

device control• Special Purpose Machines

(SPM)• Chemical Process Control

• Motion control

• In-vehicle logging• Machine Condition

Monitoring• Industrial Machine

Control• Oil & Gas Monitoring

• Power Monitoring• Structural Monitoring• Automated Welding

Control

• Machine Vision• Power Distribution/Control

• ECU Prototyping• Analytical Instruments

• Turbine Control• Industrial Robotics

• Rapid Control Prototyping• Big physics & research

• Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Test

• Medical Imaging• High-end Simulation• Protocol Aware Test

• Wireless Test• Software Defined Radio

• Signal Intelligence

High PerformancePerformanceUltra Rugged

Value

Value

*Single-Board RIO versions are available that operate from -40 to 85° C and start at 10.3x9.7x2.4 cm 3

CompactRIO & Single-Board RIO PXI/PC RIO

LabVIEW FPGA VHDL

Abstraction to the Pin

Single-Board ComputersNI RIO Embedded Hardware

(CompactRIO,NI Single-Board RIO, PXI)

Device Drivers

Board Support Package (BSP)

Driver API

Application Software

1000s of graphical programming functions:•Data-Flow programming with structures such as while, for, pointers, semaphores, etc

•Program HMI, real-time processor and FPGA with one tool flow

•Signal processing, control, communications•Integrate C and VHDL

Easy to Use I/O API Libraries:•Built-in LabVIEW based APIs for analog, digital, motion, etc

•LabVIEW based APIs for DMA transfer•LabVIEW APIs for Serial, CAN, TCP and file I/O

Prebuilt Low-level Drivers:•Device drivers for all analog and digital I/O•Device drivers for RS232, TCP/IP, UDP, etc•Drivers for System Services such as Interrupt Control , Power Management , External Bus Interface Unit Control , Deferred Callback , DMA Management

Ready to Run Out of the Box:•VxWorks & Pharlap RTOS with prebuilt BSP•Easy to use Boot loader, flash and download utilities/drivers

•USB, Ethernet and other low-level software stacks

Industry Leading Silicon•Intel & Freescale processors•Xilinx FPGA•NI custom high-performance bus interface ASIC• Standard connectivity with NI or custom C Series I/O

“Focus on Innovation,not Implementation”

NI LabVIEW System Design

Software

NI RIO Empowers Smaller Design Teams

Software Designers FPGA

DesignersCustom IC Designers

ASIC Designers

Mechanical Designers

Domain Experts

Dom

ain

Expe

rts

Syst

em

Arch

itect

s

“In the past, we would have needed a team of four people – a controls expert, a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a programmer, now it takes only one person.”

Sean Dougherty, Mechatronics Supervisor for MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates – U.S.

Vision

Communication

3rd-PartyModules

Motion

HMIs

RIO Platform

SupportingPlatforms& Services

Services andTraining

WSN

AlliancePartners

IP for control, Analysis, comm, …

NI Embedded Applications & Industries

Embedded Monitoring Embedded Control

•Custom monitoring & logging•Machine condition monitoring•Power quality & smart grid•Energy (oil & gas and renewables)

•Custom machine control•Medical instruments & devices•Robotics•Research instruments

Embedded Fuel Cell Prototyping• Developing a real-time ECU

prototype for an automotive fuel cell

• LabVIEW & CompactRIO for prototyping the controller

• LabVIEW & PXI for HIL testing

"Ford has a long history with NI, and we have used LabVIEW to develop various aspects of every fuel cell electric vehicle that we produce and to successfully design and implement a real-time embedded control system for an automotive FCS.“

– Kurt D. Osborne, Ford Motor Company

Fedex Fire Suppression Control System• Embedded temperature monitoring

and control of suppression system• Protects packages, pilots, and

planes from fires• Fast prototyping and deployment

with RIO hardware and LabVIEW

“We were able to start with LabVIEW and CompactRIO for prototyping and quickly migrate our code to the new NI Single-Board RIO for deployment – all in less than a year.” -Jeremy Snow, President at Ventura Aerospace

Medical Device for Premature Infants

• NTrainer System® based on NI CompactRIO and LabVIEW

• Pressure monitoring/control system teaches premature babies to feed

“With National Instruments LabVIEW and NI CompactRIO, we were able to reduce our development cost by $250,000…from 4 months to 4 weeks”

- Dave Stalling, Chief Technical Officer, KCBioMediX

NI Embedded Advantage• OEM experience with many industries

• Extreme stability– 35 year track record of strong growth and profitability– No one industry/customer represents >15% of our revenue

• Global manufacturing facilities

• Focus on industry standard form-factors, technologies

• NI Product Life Cycle Management – Products designed with stable components and technologies – Manufacture most products for 10+ years– Automated product change notification (PCN) system

Questions?