Instrument Control

Contents
• Introduction
• GPIB communication
Data transfer termination
Data transfer rate
• Hardware specifications
• Software architecture
• Instrument I/O assistant
• VISA
VISA programming terminology
VISA and serial
• Instrument drivers
• Virtual Instrument Software Architecture (VISA) and IVI
• USB
• Firewire.
 INTRODUCTION

National Instruments hardware and

software connect the computer to
your application.

By providing an extensive hardware

selection, including data acquisition
and signal conditioning devices,
instrument control interfaces (such
as GPIB, Serial, VXI and PXI), image
acquisition, motion control and
industrial communications
interfaces, National Instruments
offers the widest range of solutions
for practically any measurement.
GPIB COMMUNICATION

• IEEE Standard 488.1

• known as General Purpose Interface Bus (GPIB), describes a standard interface
for communication between instruments and controllers from various vendors.
• GPIB instruments are often used as stand-alone benchtop instruments where
measurements are taken by hand.
• You can automate these measurements by using a PC to control the GPIB
instruments.
• GPIB is a digital, 8-bit parallel communication interface with data transfer rates of 1
Mbyte/s and higher, using a three-wire handshake.
• The bus supports one system controller, usually a computer, and up to 14 additional
instruments.
• The GPIB protocol categorizes devices as controllers, talkers, or listeners to determine
which device has active control of the bus.
• Each device has a unique GPIB primary address between 0 and 30.
• The controller defines the communication links, responds to devices that request
service, sends GPIB commands, and passes/receives control of the bus.
• Controllers instruct talkers to talk and to place data on the GPIB.
• You can address only one device at a time to talk.
• The controller addresses the listener to listen and to read data from the GPIB.
• You can address several devices to listen.
• 5 control lines
• 3 handshake lines
• 8 bi-directional data lines.
• Devices exist on the bus in any one of 3 general forms:
1. Controller
2. Talker
3. Listener
• The Controller manages the flow of information on the GPIB by sending commands
to all devices.
• For example a ‘listen’ only device can not be made to talk to the controller.
• The Talker sends data to other devices.
• The Listener receives the information from the Talker.
Data Transfer Termination

• Termination informs listeners that all data has been transferred.

• You can terminate a GPIB data transfer in the following three ways:
● The GPIB includes an end-or-Identify (EOI) hardware line that can be asserted
with the last data byte. This is the preferred method.
● Place a specific end-of-string (EOS) character at the end of the data string itself.
Some instruments use this method instead of or in addition to the EOI line
assertion.
● The listener counts the bytes transferred by handshaking and stops reading when
the listener reaches a byte count limit. This method is often used as a default
termination method because the transfer stops on the logical OR of EOI, EOS (if
used) in conjunction with the byte count. Thus, you typically set the byte count to
equal or exceed the expected number of bytes to be read.
Data Transfer Rate
• To achieve the high data transfer rate that the GPIB was designed for, you must
limit the number of devices on the bus and the physical distance between devices.
• You can obtain faster data rates with HS488 devices and controllers.
• HS488 is an extension to GPIB that most NI controllers support.
HARDWARE SPECIFICATIONS

• The GPIB is a digital, 24-conductor parallel bus.

• It consists of eight data lines (DIO 1-8), five bus management lines (EOI, IFC,
SRQ, ATN, REN), three handshake lines (DAV, NRFD, NDAC), and eight ground
lines.
• The GPIB uses an eight-bit parallel, byte-serial, asynchronous data transfer
scheme.
•Five lines manage the flow of information across the
interface:
•ATN (attention)
•IFC (interface clear)
•REN (remote enable)
•SRQ (service request)
• EOI (end or identify)
The eight data lines, DIO1 through DIO8, carry both data and
command messages. The state of the Attention (ATN) line determines
whether the information is data or commands.

Handshake Lines asynchronously control

the transfer of message bytes between
devices. The process is called a 3-wire
interlocked handshake. It guarantees that
message bytes on the data lines are sent
and received without transmission error.
•NRFD (not ready for data)
•NDAC (not data accepted)
•DAV (data valid)
 Electrical specifications and Configurations
● A maximum separation of 4 m between any two devices and an average
separation of 2 m over the entire bus.
● A maximum cable length of 20 m.
● A maximum of 15 devices connected to each bus with at least two- thirds of the
devices powered on.
• The data transfer speed largely depends on the configuration of the system.
• The stackable connectors and the design of the bus allow a single computer
interface card to be used to connect to as many as 15 instruments in a star or linear
configuration, as shown below.
SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE

• The software architecture for the instrument control using LabVIEW is similar to the
architecture for DAQ.
• Instrument interfaces such as GPIB include a set of drivers.
• Use MAX to configure the interface.
• VISA, Virtual Instrument Software Architecture, is a common API to communicate
with the interface drivers and is the preferred method used when programming for
instrument control in LabVIEW, because VISA abstracts the type of interface used.
• Many LabVIEW VIs used for instrument control use the VISA API.
• Use the Instrument I/O Assistant when an instrument driver is not available.
• In LabVIEW, an instrument driver is a set of VIs specially written to communicate
with an instrument.
The instrument is connected to the
computer through a built-in connector
such as RS-232 or an installed interface
board such as GPIB or VXI/MXI.

Driver-level software for instrument is

in the form of a Dynamic Link Library
(DLL).

LabVIEW is the high-level application

software layer.

LabVIEW includes built-in functions for

GPIB, serial, VXI, and computer-based
instruments that load and use the
installed driver software.
MAX (Windows; GPIB)
• Use MAX to configure and test the GPIB interface.
• MAX interacts with the various diagnostic and configuration tools installed with the driver
and also with the Windows Registry and Device Manager.
• The driver-level software is in the form of a DLL and contains all the functions that directly
communicate with the GPIB interface.
• The Instrument I/O VIs and functions directly call the driver software.
• Open MAX by double-clicking the icon on the desktop or by selecting Tools»Measurement
& Automation Explorer in LabVIEW to open the window as in Figure.
• Configure the objects listed in MAX by right-clicking each item and selecting an option
from the shortcut menu.
• The Measurement and Automation Explorer (MAX) allows you to configure the GPIB card
and search for instruments, set the VISA alias name, run NI-Spy and configure IVI
instrument drivers.
INSTRUMENT I/O ASSISTANT

• The Instrument I/O Assistant is a LabVIEW Express VI which you can use to
communicate with message-based instruments and convert the response from raw data to
an ASCII representation.
• You can communicate with an instrument that uses a serial, Ethernet, or GPIB interface.
• The Instrument I/O Assistant organizes instrument communication into ordered steps.
• To use Instrument I/O Assistant, you place steps into a sequence.
• As you add steps to the sequence, they appear in the Step Sequence window.
• Use the view associated with a step to configure instrument I/O.
• The Instrument I/O Assistant shown in Figure is located on the Functions»Input and
Functions»All Functions»Instrument I/O palettes is a LabVIEW Express VI that allows
you to easily test communication with your instrument and develop a sequence of query,
parse and write steps. These steps can be saved as an Express VI for instant use or can be
converted to a LabVIEW subVI.
• Use the Instrument I/O Assistant when an instrument driver is not available.
• To launch the Instrument I/O Assistant, place the Instrument I/O Assistant Express
VI on the block diagram in LabVIEW.
• The Instrument I/O Assistant Express VI is available in the Instrument I/O
category of the Functions palette.
• The Instrument I/O Assistant configuration dialog box appears. If it does not
appear, double-click the Instrument I/O Assistant icon.
Steps to configure the Instrument I/O Assistant
• Step 1: Select an instrument. Instruments that have been configured in MAX appear in the
Select an instrument pull-down menu.
• Step 2: Choose a Code generation type. VISA code generation allows for more flexibility
and modularity than GPIB code generation.
• Step 3: Select from the following communication steps using the Add Step button:
● Query and Parse—Sends a query to the instrument, such as *IDN? and parses the
returned string. This step combines the Write command and Read and Parse
command.
● Write—Sends a command to the instrument.
● Read and Parse—Reads and parses data from the instrument.
Step 4: After adding the desired number of steps, click the Run button to test the sequence
of communication that you have configured for the Express VI.
Step 5: Click the OK button to exit the Instrument I/O Assistant configuration dialog box.
Serial Configuration of the Instrument I/O Assistant

A GPIB instrument was set up, then a query (*IDN?) was sent to the
instrument. The response was automatically parsed, resulting in a string output.
• LabVIEW adds input and output terminals to the Instrument I/O Assistant Express VI
on the block diagram that correspond to the data you receive from the instrument.
• To view the code generated by the Instrument I/O Assistant, right-click the
Instrument I/O Assistant icon and select Open Front Panel from the shortcut menu.
• This converts the Express VI to a subVI. Switch to the block diagram to see the code
generated. After you convert an Express VI to a subVI, you cannot reconvert the
Express VI.
• Once you have placed the I/O Assistant on the block diagram, the wizard opens.
• The wizard starts in the Select Instrument step, where you can choose a GPIB or
serial instrument.
• You also can check the interface properties from this window. After selecting the
instrument, you can add sequences to Query and Parse, Write, or Read and Parse.
• In addition, after you have set up a communication sequence with one instrument,
you can set up additional instruments in the same Express VI.
Virtual Instrument Software Architecture (VISA)

• Virtual Instrument Software Architecture (VISA) is the lower layer of functions in

the LabVIEW instrument driver VIs that communicates with the driver software.
• VISA by itself does not provide instrumentation programming capability.
• VISA is a high-level API that calls low-level drivers.
• As shown in Figure VISA can control VXI, GPIB, serial, or computer-based
instruments and makes the appropriate driver calls depending on the type of
instrument used.
• In LabVIEW, VISA is a single library of functions you use to communicate with
GPIB, serial, VXI and computer-based instruments.
• You do not need to use separate I/O palettes to program an instrument.
• For example, some instruments give you a choice for the type of interface.
• If the LabVIEW instrument driver was written with functions on the Functions»All
Functions»InstrumentI/O»GPIB palette, those instrument driver VIs would not
work for the instrument with the serial port interface.
• VISA solves this problem by providing a single set of functions that work for any
type of interface.
• Therefore, many LabVIEW instrument drivers use VISA as the I/O language.
• National Instruments initially addressed the software problems with instrument
drivers, which helped reduce both integration time and software development
costs.
VISA Programming Terminology
• VISA or Virtual Instrument Software Architecture is a protocol built upon 488.2
driver and functions to meet the industry needs for having a way to easily interface
with multiple I/Os and have all manufacturers of instruments and instrument
drivers follow a protocol.
• VISA created by the VXIplug&play Alliance which is composed of the top 35
instrument manufacturers such as HP. National Instruments is a leading member of
the alliance.
• The resource name contains information on the type of I/O interface and the device
address. You can use an alias you assign in MAX instead of the instrument
descriptor.
• The most important objects in the VISA language are known as resources. The
functions you can use with an object are known as operations. In addition to the
operations that you can use an object, the object has variables, known as attributes,
associated with it that contains information related to the object.
• Resource—Any instrument in the system, including serial and parallel ports.
• Session—You must open a VISA session to a resource to communicate with it, similar
to a communication channel.
• When you open a session to a resource, LabVIEW returns a VISA session number
which is a unique refnum to that instrument.
• You must use the session number in all subsequent VISA functions.
• Instrument Descriptor—Exact name of a resource.
• The descriptor specifies the interface type (GPIB, VXI, ASRL), the address of the
device (logical address or primary address) and the VISA session type (INSTR or
Event).
• The instrument descriptor is similar to a telephone number, the resource is similar to the
person with whom you want to speak and the session is similar to the telephone line.
• Each call uses its own line, and crossing these lines results in an error.
• The most commonly used VISA communication functions are the VISA Write and
VISA Read functions.
• Most instruments require you to send information in the form of a command or
query before you can read information back from the instrument.
• Therefore, the VISA Write function is usually followed by a VISA Read function.
• The VISA Write and VISA Read functions work with any type of instrument
communication and are the same whether you are doing GPIB or serial
communication.
• However, because serial communication requires you to configure extra
parameters, you must start the serial port communication with the VISA
Configure Serial Port VI.
VISA and Serial

• The VISA Configure Serial Port VI initializes the port identified by VISA resource name
to the specified settings.
• Timeout sets the timeout value for the serial communication.
• Baud rate, data bits, parity and flow control specify those specific serial port parameters.
• The error in and error out clusters maintain the error conditions for this VI.
• The VISA Configure Serial Port VI opens communication with COM2 and sets it to 9,600
baud, eight data bits, odd parity, one stop bit and XON/XOFF software handshaking.
• Then, the VISA Write function sends the command.
• The VISA Read function reads back up to 200 bytes into the read buffer, and the Simple
Error Handler VI checks the error condition.
• The VIs and functions located on the Functions»All Functions»Instrument I/O»Serial
palette are also used for communication.
IVI (Interchangeable Virtual Instruments)

• IVI is a revolutionary standard for instrument driver software technology.

• IVI builds on the VXI plug & play specifications and incorporates new features
that address issues such as system performance, development flexibility, and
instrument interchangeability.
• IVI drivers also take advantage of the power of the VISA I/O library defined by
VXI plug & play to seamlessly communicate with instruments across different I/O
buses such as GPIB, VXI, PXI, Serial, Ethernet, and USB.
• IVI specifications subdivide instruments into classes such as digital multimeter or
oscilloscope.
• They then create a specification for that class based on the most common features
and functionality of the most popular instruments within that class.
IVI Instrument Classes
• Digital Multimeter
• Oscilloscope
• DC Power Supply
• Arbitrary Waveform/Function Generator
• Switch
• Power Meter
• Spectrum Analyzer
• RF Signal Generator
IVI Architecture
• IVI is an integral component of a test system.
• IVI sits above the VISA I/O layer in the program hierarchy and is integrated into
the application development environments.
• The IVI architecture breaks the traditional instrument driver into two parts – an
instrument-specific driver and a class driver.
• The instrument-specific driver functions the way traditional instrument drivers have
in the past, but with an underlying architecture that is optimized for performance
and includes instrument simulation.
• The class instrument driver contains generic functions for controlling an instrument
category and calls the corresponding instrument specific driver functions at run
time.
• You can write your test program with either the class driver or the specific driver,
but only programs written to the class driver are interchangeable.
• On the right hand side are a group of components referred to as the IVI Shared
Components.
• These components, which are created and distributed by the IVI Foundation, provide a
common basis for configuring IVI systems and handling other tasks such as dynamic
driver loading and error handling.
• The IVI Foundation provides the shared components to ensure interoperability between
different vendor systems.
• In addition, the IVI Foundation has defined the IVI architecture to work with two
interface technologies, one based on the ANSI C standard and one on Microsoft COM
(Component Object Model) technology.
• The two architecture types are designed to be interoperable.
• You can use IVI-C drivers and IVI-COM drivers in the same application.
• With the IVI configuration utility, you can interchange instruments without recompiling
or relinking your application source code by configuring logical names and driver
sessions in MAX.
INSTRUMENT DRIVERS

• LabVIEW provides more than 1200 LabVIEW instrument drivers from more than 50
vendors.
• You can use these instrument drivers to build complete systems quickly.
• Instrument drivers drastically reduce software development costs because developers do
not need to spend time programming their instruments.
• You can reuse the drivers in a variety of systems and configurations.
• LabVIEW instrument drivers simplify instrument programming to high-level
commands, so you do not need to learn the low-level instrument-specific syntax needed
to control your instruments.
• The programming is broken down into general functions for the DMM.
• These instrument drivers are called LabVIEW instrument drivers because the source
code is graphical programming made from standard LabVIEW functions and VIs.
• LabVIEW instrument drivers are in the form of VI libraries and are organized into
categories of instrument functions.
• Consider an example where you wrote a LabVIEW VI that communicates with a specific
oscilloscope in your lab.
• Unfortunately, the oscilloscope no longer works, and you must replace it.
• However, this particular oscilloscope is no longer made.
• You found a different brand of oscilloscope that you want to purchase, but your VI no
longer works with the new oscilloscope.
• You must rewrite your VI. When you use an instrument driver, the driver contains the
code specific to the instrument.
• Therefore, if you change instruments, you must replace only the instrument driver VIs
with the instrument driver VIs for the new instrument, which greatly reduces your
redevelopment time.
• Instrument drivers help make test applications easier to maintain because the drivers
contain all the I/O for an instrument in one library, separate from other code.
• When you upgrade hardware, upgrading the application is easier because the instrument
driver contains all the code specific to that instrument.
• A LabVIEW Plug and Play instrument driver is a set of VIs that control a
programmable instrument.
• Each VI corresponds to an instrument operation, such as configuring, triggering
and reading measurements from the instrument.
• You can locate most LabVIEW Plug and Play instrument driver in the Instrument
Driver Finder.
• You can access the Instrument Driver Finder within LabVIEW by selecting
Tools»Instrumentation»Find Instrument Drivers or Help»Find Instrument Drivers.
• The Instrument Driver Finder connects you with ni.com to find instrument drivers.
VIs in an instrument driver
Instrument driver model
USB (Universal Serial Bus)
• In the latest PCs, many of the peripherals such as the keyboard, mouse, scanners,
printers, modem and even external CD-ROM drives and CD-writers are
connected to the computer through a USB cable.
• As personal computers became more and more powerful and began to handle
photographic images, audio, video and other bulky data, it became evident that
existing communication buses were not good enough to carry the data back-and-
forth between the computers and peripherals.
• The users wanted the bulky data to be moved around faster, rather than more
slowly.
• So a group of leading computer and telecom firms including IBM, Intel,
Microsoft, Compaq, Digital Equipment, NEC, and Northern Telecom got
together and developed USB.
Architecture of USB

• The USB is a medium-speed serial data bus designed to carry relatively large
amounts of data over relatively short cables: up to about 5 m long.
• It can support data rates of up to 12 Mbps (megabits per second), which is
fast enough for most PC peripherals such as scanners, printers, keyboards,
mice, joysticks, graphics tablets, low-res digital cameras, modems, digital
speakers, low speed CD-ROM and CD-writer drives, external Zip disk drives,
and so on.
• The USB is an addressable bus system, with a 7-bit address code so it can support
up to 127 different devices or nodes.
• Any device connected to the USB can have a number of other nodes connected
to it in daisy-chain fashion, so it can also form the hub for a mini-star
subnetwork.
• Similarly, it can have a device which purely functions as a hub for other node
devices, with no separate function of its own. This expansion through hubs is
available because the USB supports a tiered star topology, as shown in Fig.
• On a USB hub device, the single port is used to connect to the host PC either directly or
via another hub known as the upstream port, while the ports used for connecting other
devices to the USB are known as the downstream ports.
• Most hubs provide either four or seven downstream ports, or less.
• Another important feature of the USB is that it is designed to allow hot swapping.
• Devices can be plugged into and unplugged from the bus without having to turn the
power off and on again, re-boot the PC or even, manually start a driver program.
• A new device can simply be connected to the USB, and the PCs operating system
should recognize it and automatically set up the necessary driver to service it.
• USB cables consist of two twisted pairs of wires, one pair used to carry the
bidirectional serial data and the other pair 5 V DC power.
• This makes it possible for low-powered peripherals such as a mouse, joystick or
modem to be powered directly from the USB.
USB pins and signals

• A USB network can only have one host.

USB socket
Data Formats

• USB data transfer is essentially in the form of packets of data, sent back-and- forth
between the hosts and peripheral devices. However, USB is designed to handle different
types of data. The two main formats are the asynchronous mode and synchronous
mode.
• Asynchronous Mode. This mode is used for transferring data that is not time
critical. This format is used to transmit data from a scanner or digital scanner for
example to a printer. The packets can be interleaved on the USB with others being
sent to or from other devices.

• Synchronous Mode. The other main format is synchronous mode, used to transfer
data that is time critical, such as audio data to digital speakers, or to/from a
modem. These packets must not be delayed by those from other devices.
Advantages of USB

• Always ON, always connected and always ready to go

• Capable of downloading up to 100 times faster than Traditional devices
• Supports upstream data rates up to 30 Mbps
• Enables access to real-time online games
• Downloads mega files in seconds
• Stand-by switch disconnects the modem from the outside world when not in use
• No telephone line needed
• USB or Ethernet connectivity simplifies installation
FireWire
• FireWire is a high-speed serial bus based on the IEEE 1394 standard and the IEC
1883 standard.
• The name was given by Apple Computers, where the standard developed.
• Also known as i-Link from Sony and some other consumer electronics companies.
• About the bus structure
 Logically Tree-like -- single root control device branches out to
logical nodes. This is implemented over a physical “daisy-chaining”
setup.
 There is a maximum of 1023 buses connected by bridges. Each bus
supports 63 devices, each having 256 terra-bytes of addressable space
giving about 16K exabytes of addressable storage (64 bit addresses).
 Physical Layout (Hardware Perspective)

FireWire is plug-and-play
FireWire devices The main reason to
are hot pluggable, use FireWire over
which means they can USB is simply the
be connected and connection speed.
disconnected at any
time, even with the 
power on.
The Cable

• Two shielded twisted pair wires and two power wires in a shielded round jacket.
• Power cables keep all parts of bus alive even when devices un-energized.
• Also eliminates need for power cable on low power requiring devices.
• Four pin connector cables with no power cables are also available.
The Protocol
• FireWire supports two distinct transfer modes:
• Asynchronous
• Intended for normal, non-real-time data, such as control signals.
• Two-way send/ack protocol for transmissions between explicitly identified
senders and receivers.
• Sender may transmit up to 64 outstanding (un-acked) packets to maintain
throughput.
• Isochronous
• Intended for high-bandwidth, real-time transfers, such as video and sound
• Guaranteed-bandwidth for just-in-time delivery, reducing or eliminating the need
for buffers
• Broadcasts to all parts of the bus without acknowledgment, receivers ignore all
traffic not on the correct channel