NIWeek 2011 Embedded Systems Recommendations

'tis that time of year again, to prepare for NIWeek, peruse the conference program and come up with a list of sessions to attend. In order to get your list started, following are my recommendations of events and sessions that will be of interest to embedded systems developers. These sessions focus on developing reliable and robust embedded applications using NI's LabVIEW Real-Time and FPGA platforms, including CompactRIO. Most of the sessions I recommend are at the intermediate level with a few advanced level session mixed in. I have included the complete abstract for all sessions at the end of this post, and they can also be found in conference program.

In addition:

• Make sure to tour the demos in the exhibition hall to learn about the latest greatest products and our partners
  
• Take advantage of the chance to talk directly to tons of NI engineers throughout the conference - lunch is a great time for this
• If you don't have a session of interest on Tuesday, trek down to the other end of the convention center to room 3 for The Future of System Design Symposium. Check the program for details.
• Have fun.
  

Events

Build Your Own Embedded System
Monday, August 1 ▶ 1:00–5:00 p.m. and Tuesday, August 2 ▶ 10:30 a.m.–3:15 p.m.

The Build Your Own Embedded System (BYOES ) hands-on workshop, sponsored by Cyth Systems, focuses on prototyping an embedded system based on CompactRIO. Learn how to use the LabVIEW Real-Time and LabVIEW FPGA modules to build a fully configured and programmed CompactRIO embedded system and take it home after the conference. Preregister at ni.com/niweek or onsite at the Austin Convention Center depending on availability. The fee for this workshop is $500 USD.

Peer2Peer Roundtables

RIO Developer - Tuesday Noon - 1 p.m. - Tables 4 and 5 (Dining area in the exhibition hall)

Hands-On Sessions - Room 18B

CompactRIO Part I: Programming With LabVIEW Real-Time
Tuesday, August 2 ▶ 3:30–4:30 p.m.
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 2:15–3:15 p.m.

CompactRIO Part II : Programming With LabVIEW FPGA
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 10:30–11:30 a.m.
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 4:45–5:45 p.m.

Making High-Speed Waveform Acquisition Easier on CompactRIO
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 1:00–2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 3:30–4:30 p.m.

Technical Sessions

Tuesday

10:30–11:30 a.m

NI SoftMotion: Taking Motion Control to the Next Level, Room 11A
Kiran Sreekantham, Senior Software Engineer, NI

1:00–2:00 p.m

Pushing the Limits of CompactRIO, Room 11A
Robert Hoffman, Engineer, Signal.X Technologies

2:15–3:15 p.m.

Best Practices for Development With the LabVIEW FPGA Module, Room 11A
John Ammerman, Senior Hardware Engineer, NI

3:30–4:30 p.m

Advanced Error Handling in LabVIEW, Room 14
Ryan King, Systems Engineer, NI

4:45–5:45 p.m.

Building a Complete Data Monitoring and Storage System With CompactRIO, Room 11A
Arnoud de Kuijper, Engineer, T&M Solutions B.V.

Wednesday

10:30–11:30 a.m.

Changing Your Mindset for LabVIEW Real-Time and LabVIEW FPGA Programming, Room 14
Ryan King, Systems Engineer, NI

1:00–2:00 p.m

Design Patterns for LabVIEW FPGA, Room 16A
Gerardo Garcia, Product Manager, NI

1:30–2:00 p.m

Overcoming Technical Challenges: Lessons Learned in Smart Distribution Systems Development, Room 16B
Presented by Siemens, and Jonathan Suda, Engineer, CenterPoint Energy

2:15–3:15 p.m.

Developing LabVIEW FPGA Host VIs for Reuse and Distribution, Room 12A
Matt Novacek, Senior Software Engineer, NI

3:30–4:30 p.m.

Developing a Powerful HMI Application Using NI Hardware and Windows Embedded Software, Room 12A
Andrew Mierau, R&D Product Engineer, NI

4:45–5:45 p.m.

A Cellular-Enabled, In-Vehicle CompactRIO Logger for Fuel Economy Analysis, Room 14
Scott Sirrine, Lead Product Engineer, Eaton Corporation

Thursday

10:30–11:30 a.m.

Addressing Bandwidth Challenges of Embedded Industrial Applications, Room 16A
Keith Nesrsta, ISM Business Development Manager – Americas, Xilinx

1:00–2:00 p.m.

Benchmarking LabVIEW Performance, Room 12A
Philip Carmichael, Principal Software Engineer, NI

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Session Descriptions

Abstracts for all of the session listed above

Tuesday

NI SoftMotion: Taking Motion Control to the Next Level
Kiran Sreekantham, Senior Software Engineer, NI
Tuesday, August 2 ▶ 10:30–11:30 a.m. ▶ Room 11A
Explore advanced motion control for CompactRIO systems. Learn about embedded system architectures for motion, C Series drive modules, integration with third-party products, and motion over EtherCAT and CANopen interfaces.

LabVIEW Embedded Tips and Tricks
Jason Burns, Senior Controls Engineer, Boston Engineering
Tuesday, August 2 ▶ 10:30–11:30 a.m. ▶ Room 16A
As one of the earliest adopters of the LabVIEW Embedded Module for ARM Microcontrollers and LabVIEW Embedded Module for ADI Blackfin Processors, Boston Engineering developed a unique portfolio of tips and tricks through a combination of projects and close relationships with NI. Gain insight into proper LabVIEW embedded programming and debugging techniques.

Pushing the Limits of CompactRIO
Robert Hoffman, Engineer, Signal.X Technologies
Tuesday, August 2 ▶ 1:00–2:00 p.m. ▶ Room 11A
Signal.X Technologies has developed an automated test system that uses CompactRIO to execute functions that previously required several different controllers or PLCs. Explore the technical development aspects when mission-critical reliability, continuous operation, highly parallel architecture, and high processor load situations are present.

Embedded System Fundamentals for Smart GridSensing and Analytics
Chris LeBlanc, Member, Center for Commercialization of Electric Technologies
Roberto Piacentini, Global Technology Program Manager, NI
Tuesday, August 2 ▶ 1:00–2:00 p.m. ▶ Room 16B
The proliferation of smart networked embedded systems throughout the grid will revolutionize the way electricity is produced, consumed, and distributed and act as a foundation for a clean energy future. Embedded smart instrumentation systems are the building blocks for monitoring, controlling, and automating transmission and distribution power systems. How do you design smart embedded systems capable of real-time processing, analytics, time synchronization, and network communication with the utility? How are synchrophasor measurement units implemented and programmed?

Beyond State Machines: Building ModularApplications in LabVIEW
Justin Goeres, System Integration Expert, JKI
Tuesday, August 2 ▶ 2:15–3:15 p.m. ▶ Room 14
Nearly every significant LabVIEW application uses multiple loops and several pieces of hardware. Coordinating these moving pieces can create a recipe for unreadable code. Learn how to use a template for interprocess communication based on “public” and “private” events that is easy enough for intermediate developers but powerful enough for Certified LabVIEW Architects.

Best Practices for Development With the LabVIEW FPGA Module
John Ammerman, Senior Hardware Engineer, NI
Tuesday, August 2 ▶ 2:15–3:15 p.m. ▶ Room 11A
Some ways to approach FPGA design with LabVIEW are better than others. Listen to a senior digital design engineer and long-time LabVIEW FPGA enthusiast as he shares best practices to deliver successful FPGA designs.

Advanced Error Handling in LabVIEW
Ryan King, Systems Engineer, NI
Tuesday, August 2 ▶ 3:30–4:30 p.m. ▶ Room 14
Examine the challenges of implementing a full-featured error handling strategy in LabVIEW and the tools to meet some of the most common error handling needs. Discuss error classification and description; central versus specific error handling; and techniques for communicating, logging, and reporting errors.

Building a Complete Data Monitoring and Storage System With CompactRIO
Arnoud de Kuijper, Engineer, T&M Solutions B.V.
Tuesday, August 2 ▶ 4:45–5:45 p.m. ▶ Room 11A
Building a configurable monitoring system for synchronized measurements can be challenging. Design considerations include robustness, compatibility, configurability, acquisition speed, and traceability. Examine the software design considerations for engineering such a system, and discuss advanced software techniques, design patterns, and software architectures.

Wednesday

Changing Your Mindset for LabVIEW Real-Time and LabVIEW FPGA Programming
Ryan King, Systems Engineer, NI
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 10:30–11:30 a.m. ▶ Room 14
Have you used LabVIEW for your desktop and considered using LabVIEW Real-Time or LabVIEW FPGA for your next project? Learn what to expect when making the transition and how to avoid common pitfalls.

Developing a Wind Turbine Condition Monitoring System
Bong-Ki Kim and SangRyul Kim, Senior Researchers, Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials
Youngkey Kim, CEO , SM Instruments
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 10:30–11:30 a.m. ▶ Room 12A
CompactRIO is an ideal platform for embedded, high-speed data logging and can be used to effectively monitor the conditions of industrial machines and equipment. As these machines become more complex, datalogger requirements have evolved to include mixed measurement speeds and types as well as remote data streaming. Watch and listen as industry experts present an architecture that you can replicate to build and deploy such a system using a wind turbine as the backdrop for their approach.

Team-Based Development Techniques and the Impact of Source-Only VIs
Peter Guo and George Martinez, LabVIEW Senior Software Engineers, NI
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 1:00–2:00 p.m. ▶ Room 14
Learn configuration management best practices, including how to manage files using the LabVIEW Project Explorer, integration with popular source code control tools such as Subversion, and how the
new source-only VI file format can help ensure that code changes do not cause a ripple effect through your application hierarchy.

Design Patterns for LabVIEW FPGA
Gerardo Garcia, Product Manager, NI
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 1:00–2:00 p.m. ▶ Room 16A
Design patterns are conceptual solutions to common problems and can be applied in a variety of situations. Examine several design patterns applicable to systems designed with LabVIEW FPGA and how we solved a problem by composing an FPGA application out of several of those design patterns.

Overcoming Technical Challenges: Lessons Learned in Smart Distribution Systems Development
Presented by Siemens, and
Jonathan Suda, Engineer, CenterPoint Energy
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 1:30–2:00 p.m. ▶ Room 16B
Hear about the technical lessons learned for the development and deployment of smart recloser and switch systems from both Siemens and CenterPoint perspectives.

Developing LabVIEW FPGA Host VIs for Reuse and Distribution
Matt Novacek, Senior Software Engineer, NI
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 2:15–3:15 p.m. ▶ Room 12A
With the dynamic mode of the LabVIEW FPGA host interface, introduced in LabVIEW 2010, you can construct host subVIs that can be reused with a variety of FPGA VIs and different targets. Learn when and how you can take advantage of this functionality to create host subVIs that can be reused within one application or distributed to others.

Developing a Powerful HMI Application Using NI Hardware and Windows Embedded Software
Andrew Mierau, R&D Product Engineer, NI
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 3:30–4:30 p.m. ▶ Room 12A
Learn how to develop a polished Windows Embedded HMI application that has high reliability, efficient management of large interfaces, and improved user responsiveness and resource utilization. Using these techniques, and other OS tips and tricks, you can improve the look, feel, and operation of your deployed HMI.

Simplifying High-Speed Waveform Acquisition on CompactRIO
Douglas Farrell, Product Engineer,
Preston Johnson, Platform Manager, and
Jeff Tipps, Systems Engineer, NI
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 4:45–5:45 p.m. ▶ Room 16A
FPGA programming on CompactRIO can get complicated quickly, especially when dealing with the high-bandwidth requirements of high-speed waveform acquisition. Learn about an architecture that provides a starting point in the FPGA with built-in performance optimization as well as a LabVIEW API experience for calling the FPGA from LabVIEW Real-Time.

A Cellular-Enabled, In-Vehicle CompactRIO Logger for Fuel Economy Analysis
Scott Sirrine, Lead Product Engineer, Eaton Corporation
Wednesday, August 3 ▶ 4:45–5:45 p.m. ▶ Room 14
In the trucking industry, understanding a vehicle’s duty cycle and optimizing fuel economy are critical to reducing operating costs. Learn about an in-vehicle logger based on CompactRIO developed to accurately analyze and trend vehicle operating conditions. Users can monitor the loggers from a smartphone and data is uploaded to the NI technical data cloud.

Thursday

Addressing Bandwidth Challenges of Embedded Industrial Applications
Keith Nesrsta, ISM Business Development Manager – Americas, Xilinx
Thursday, August 4 ▶ 10:30–11:30 a.m. ▶ Room 16A
FPGAs are quickly becoming one of the primary solutions for addressing the technical bandwidth challenges historically solved with DSPs and microprocessors. Learn about the benefits of using FPGA-based solutions for embedded industrial applications. Examples include safety, control algorithms, and industrial networking.

Tips and Tricks for Deploying a RIO System
David Harding and Burt Snover, Systems Engineers, NI
Thursday, August 4 ▶ 10:30–11:30 a.m. ▶ Room 12A
Discuss the tools and gain insight into how to deploy, replicate, and protect an embedded system based on CompactRIO or NI Single-Board RIO.

Benchmarking LabVIEW Performance
Philip Carmichael, Principal Software Engineer, NI
Thursday, August 4 ▶ 1:00–2:00 p.m. ▶ Room 12A
Benchmarking is hard. Factors such as CPU and disk caches, compiler optimizations, and OS prefetching can affect the consistency and accuracy of results. See the techniques that the LabVIEW compiler and performance teams use to accurately benchmark LabVIEW VIs and application performance.

NIWeek 2010 Recommendations: How to compress 8 weeks into 3 days

If you were to attend all of the listed sessions (not even counting Keynote presentations, counting meetings with developers, time spent in the Expo hall, the Technology Theater, the conference parties, etc.) it would take you roughly eight work weeks to see them all. Of course your boss won’t let you come to Austin for two months to learn all this great stuff, so we have to compress it into three days.

Here’s some of my recommendations for specific sessions to see if you’re working on industrial and embedded control or monitoring applications. Of course this is just a short survey and there are lots more great sessions on the schedule. In a few cases I recommend more than one session in a time slot. I couldn't decide, so I will let you make your own choice.

Tuesday

TS3012-SW State Machine versus State Machine
Do you start all LabVIEW components with the producer-consumer design pattern, or do you use a full-featured state machine? Watch two Certified LabVIEW Architects face off over who has the best state machine and which features are essential for your template.
8/3/2010 (Tuesday), 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM Room 12B
Justin Goeres, JKI
Norman Kirchner, National Instruments
Nancy Hollenback, LabVIEW Instructor and Architect, The G Team

TS3521-IMC What's New with CompactRIO
Learn about the new hardware and software features for NI CompactRIO and how they can increase your design capabilities and efficiency.
8/3/2010 (Tuesday),01:00 PM - 02:00 PM Room 13 A/B
Arves Stolpe Product Manager, National Instruments

TS3301-IMC Best Practices for Designing Scalable Motion Control Applications on NI Real-Time Hardware Platforms
Learn how to realize motion control applications and deploy them to the hardware platform of your choice. Experience how the LabVIEW NI SoftMotion Module simplifies the design of multiaxis motion applications and see how you can use the same tools to integrate EtherCAT-based drives into your control application.
8/3/2010 (Tuesday), 04:45 PM - 05:45 PM Room 13 A/B
Christian Fritz, National Instruments
Marc Christenson, Systems Engineer, Sisu Devices

TS4140-ETS Wind Turbine Prognostics and Health Management
Health monitoring and predictive maintenance technology is essential for lowering wind turbine operating costs. However, reliable prognostic algorithms are challenging due to the dynamic conditions faced by wind turbines. Learn about health assessment analysis techniques for wind turbines including a multiregime approach to segmenting data.
8/3/2010 (Tuesday), 04:45 PM - 05:15 PM Room 16B
Jay Lee, Director of Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems, University of Cincinnati

Wednesday

TS4422-ETS Smart Grid and Renewable Energy Technology- Directions and Challenges
The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) leads the way in developing clean energy technologies. Join Bill Kramer for an overview of instrumentation, test, control and monitoring projects at NREL. Get behind the scenes on smart grid power electronics, wind, solar and energy storage developments. Learn how you can apply your software and engineering skills to develop new products and systems in this exciting new technology area.
8/4/2010 (Wednesday), 10:30 AM - 11:00 AM Room 16B
Bill Kramer, Senior Research Engineer, National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL)

TS3260-IMC Using CompactRIO and LabVIEW for Online Signal Processing and Data Recording
Learn how you can perform online signal processing of "trapped" data records using LabVIEW FPGA and LabVIEW Real-Time for waveform acquisition, acquisition triggering, signal processing, and recording to TDMS files. See condition monitoring, prognostics, and motor current signature analysis examples.
8/4/2010 (Wednesday), 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM Room 13 A/B
Mike Grace, Machine Monitoring Business Development Manager, National Instruments
Preston Johnson, Sound and Vibration Segment Manager, National Instruments

TS3461-SW Completing Your Reconfigurable I/O (RIO) System with Custom Hardware: A Case Study Using NI Multisim
With Multisim, you can easily and quickly define custom circuitry to augment your current NI Single-Board RIO system. Using the new Circaflex daughter card from Cyth Systems as a case study, explore best practices in codesigning a biomedical embedded system with a printed circuit board (PCB) prototype using NI Single-Board RIO and Multisim.
8/3/2010 (Tuesday), 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM Room 12A
Bhavesh Mistry, Engineer, National Instruments

TS2992-TD Real-Time Structural Health Monitoring: The New Paradigm in Infrastructure Management
Through advances in the integration of sensors, digitizers, communication, and software, structural health monitoring (SHM) has become an effective tool for making accurate and timely remote evaluations of civil structures. Review the use of an SHM system developed using NI products that assists civil engineers in infrastructure damage detection and efficient emergency response.
8/4/2010 (Wednesday), 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM Room 14
Jon Keech, Digitexx Data Systems
Tino Mihajlovik, Digitexx Data Systems, Inc

TS3780-IMC Practical Application of a Reference Architecture for Local Machine Control
Explore the use of an enhanced NI reference architecture for local machine control to implement a process control system that performs a flush-and-fill process of a liquid-cooled computer. The system provides a basis for analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of using the reference architecture.
8/4/2010 (Wednesday), 02:15 PM - 03:15 PM Room 13
Stephen Masullo Engineer, PVI Systems Inc.
Nathan Lim PVI Systems, Inc.

TS3443-SW Best Practices for Memory Management and LabVIEW Code Optimization
Explore the internal workings of the LabVIEW execution engine, and learn how to use those principles to improve your performance and memory usage.
8/4/2010 (Wednesday), 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM Room 12A
Dan Hedges Engineer, National Instruments

TS3670-SW Developing Web-Based User Interfaces for Measurement and Automation Systems
Increasingly, engineers and scientists expect to monitor or control remote measurement and automation systems through Web browsers. Examine new NI tools for developing light-weight Web-based applications through graphical programming. These applications can be combined with LabVIEW RESTful Web services to provide powerful, flexible solutions for monitoring systems based on LabVIEW via the Web.
8/4/2010 (Wednesday), 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM Room 12B
Diya Mukherji, Engineer, National Instruments

TS3223-TD Synchronizing Scalable Sensor Measurement Systems
Learn how to build synchronized scalable data acquisition and sensor measurement systems on the PXI Express platform. Discover how recent innovations in hardware and software technologies simplify the synchronization of measurements across different sensor types using SC Express, DSA , and X Series devices. Also learn about different synchronization methods and the trade-offs associated with them.
8/4/2010 (Wednesday), 04:45 PM - 05:45 PM Room 14
Daniel Domene, National Instruments
Adam Dewhirst, Engineer, National Instruments

Thursday

TS3941-ED Architect Real-Time Systems with Confidence: Best Practices for LabVIEW Real-Time Development
How can you program your LabVIEW Real-Time applications for optimal performance, maximum reliability, and minimal jitter? Learn best practices for real-time design, development, and deployment.
8/5/2010 (Thursday), 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM Room 17A
Michael King Engineer, National Instruments

TS3037-SW LabVIEW Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) Design Patterns for Large Systems
LabVIEW object-oriented capabilities present new possibilities for large applications built on loosely coupled, event-driven components and frameworks. Find out how to reuse components across several applications by employing proven software engineering techniques such as inheritance, dynamic methods, dependency injection, and user events.
8/5/2010 (Thursday), 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM Room 12A
James Kring, CEO, JKI
Tomi Maila, JKI

TS3261-IMC Understand High-Speed DAQ with CompactRIO
View a high-speed waveform architecture for CompactRIO and learn how to integrate it with other CompactRIO devices performing measurements at different rates.
8/5/2010 (Thursday), 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM Room 15
Alan Armstead, Engineer, National Instruments
Jeff Tipps, Engineer, National Instruments

TS3289-IMC LabVIEW WSN Under the Hood
Explore the benefits and capabilities of programming wireless measurement nodes with the LabVIEW WSN Module Pioneer. Take a detailed look at the LabVIEW WSN execution model and how the embedded applications can perform custom analysis and decision making and improve battery life.
8/5/2010 (Thursday), 02:15 PM - 03:15 PM Room 15
Corby Bryan, Engineer, National Instruments

TS3449-ED The Right Development Process for LabVIEW FPGA Success
There are many wrong ways to approach LabVIEW FPGA design, which can create undesirable results. Learn the right process for successful designs in LabVIEW FPGA.
8/5/2010 (Thursday), 02:15 PM - 03:15 PM Room 19A
Daniel Eaton, Engineer, National Instruments

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If you happen to be around on Monday for Alliance Day, check out the technical session presented by the NI Systems Engineering group. Here's a shameless plug for my sessions on Monday.

AD4567 Interfacing CompactRIO with Third Party Devices
When developing applications with CompactRIO it is often necessary to communicate with sensors, controllers and other devices in the system. We will use three real-world solutions as teaching examples of how to approach development of a custom interface on CompactRIO: Siemens MPI, MySQL database, and SSI encoder.
8/2/2010 (Monday), 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM Room 15
Christian Loew, National Instruments

AD4569 Dynamic Configuration of CompactRIO I/O and Shared Variables
Using the LabVIEW Variable API on CompactRIO, develop components that dynamically discover and adapt to changes in I/O module configuration. This same API can be used to handle varying user-defined application needs with a configuration file. We will present different methods for the development of applications that provide these features.
8/2/2010 (Monday) 02:00 PM - 02:45 PM Room 15
Christian Loew, National Instruments

Unicode and LabVIEW

Ever wanted to build a LabVIEW application and localize it to many different languages? Maybe even change the language while the application is running?

You have probably been told that LabVIEW doesn't support Unicode. Well that is not quite true. While Unicode is not an official feature of LabVIEW, it is fairly well supported in an unofficial manner. I have collected some VIs and tips on using Unicode in LabVIEW and posted them on NI Community.

Please check them out and post your comments.

http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-10153

LabVIEW OOP Singleton Reference Example

If you use LabVIEW classes in your application, examples, POCs, etc., you may have been wondering how to implement a singleton object.

What is a singleton? Singletons are known in the LabVIEW world as action engines, functional globals with methods, and under a few other names. Basically it is a set of data with associated functions, and you ever only one instance of this object in your application. A functional global (non-reentrant subVI), with uninitialized shift registers (USR)) to store the data and multiple cases to implement the different functions, is the most common example of a singleton in LabVIEW. Using OOP you can easily create a class which contains the same data and functions, however, by default a class will not limit the application to only one instance (object) of the class.

There recently was a good discussion on LAVA about singletons, including a good reference example of a singleton implemented as a LV class provided by LV R&D.

http://lavag.org/topic/11513-singleton-design-pattern/page__view__findpost__p__70428

One application of a singleton object may be a database interface in an application where many different components or other objects access the same database. Typically you only want one object or component touching the database to avoid conflicts, race conditions, etc. A database access class with a singleton object is a good solution for this type of application.

My first go at writing a blog failed miserably after the first post. But as the saying goes, Try Try again. So here is my blog, Take 2.

I'm glad to say the xCE project, which I mentioned in my first post, has been completed very successfully, albeit not by me. It will be posted in the next few days on NI Developer Zone and I will write about it in an upcoming post. Search for it on ni.com in the mean time.

My time in the last few months has been occupied coordinating an update to the Machine Control Reference Architecture which we will publish for NIWeek. As part of this project I have updated the Queued Message Handler (QMH) design pattern and extracted the messaging piece into a separate Asynchronous Message Communication (AMC) reference library. It can be used to pass a variety of messages (commands, faults, alarms, status updates, etc.) between different parts of a LabVIEW application, including different LabVIEW targets connected by Ethernet.

My other area of focus recently has been deployment and replication of applications on the LabVIEW Real-Time and LabVIEW Touch Panel targets. I will be discussing this topic during NIWeek on Tuesday and will also be publishing a LV RT Application Deployment Utility reference application.

Going forward here I plan on highlighting and discussing different reference designs developed by the Systems Engineering group at NI and will throw in other random LabVIEW design and architecture topics.

If you see me at NIWeek, come say Hi. I'd love to talk with you about your applications.

Welcome to my Life on the Wire.

I'm not sure yet what aspect of LabVIEW life I want to document and comment on, but I figure I need to start where I am and then decide where I am going depending on the road ahead, my feelings of the day and possibly the weather out there in cyper space. Welcome and feel free to send me comments, feedback, and topic ideas that you're interested in.

I think my first direction will be to discuss my lack of knowledge of LVOOP and experience in learning/using LVOOP to implement a flexible and customizable configuration tool for LV applications (code name 'xCE'). I'm starting with the basic idea of the Tag Configuration Editor (TCE) and looking to expand it to handle more complex configurations (hierarchy, collections, etc.) and in addition enabling the developer to easily customize and configure their configuration editor by defining new item types using LVOOP. TCE for any configuration task => xCE.