There is no question that National Instruments’ (NI) LabVIEW software has a long and distinguished history. Last year, NI made major headlines by introducing LabVIEW NXG, which the company describes as the next generation of LabVIEW. NI is continuing its momentum with its recent announcement of a new release of LabVIEW NXG. NI asserts that this new version introduces key functionality for engineers involved with automated test-and-measurement systems.
Enhancing the Automated Test Workflow
So what are the enhancements that this new version of LabVIEW NXG offers? And what prompted NI to provide them in the first place? “The technologies that are embedded inside of test-and-measurement equipment are accelerating in performance at exponential rates,” explained David Hall, senior product marketing manager for RF and communications at NI. “Our approach for serving that capability to customers is through a flexible software-centric approach.”
Let’s first take a look at the role of a typical test engineer. “When we look at how customers use our software to build an automated test system, there are probably a number of different steps that they go through that historically have all been pretty discrete,” said Hall. “A test engineer typically gets a spec sheet, a measurement list, or a test plan to start with. This documentation tells the engineer what results are needed for which set of measurements at which set of frequencies or under what operating conditions.