New Embedded Platform Teams With LabView

A new embedded control and acquisition platform called CompactRIO is designed for advanced applications where small size and reliability are crucial. Powered by the company's reconfigurable I/O (RIO) technology, the new platform gives LabVIEW developers the ability to define their own custom measurement hardware circuitry using reconfigurable FPGA chips and LabVIEW graphical development tools. CompactRIO has two configurations: an embedded system and an R-Series expansion system. The embedded system features a real-time embedded processor, 4- or 8-slot reconfigurable chassis containing a user-programmable FPGA, and 10 hot swappable industrial I/O modules. A four-slot CompactRIO embedded system measures 7.07" x 3.47" x 3.47" and weighs just 3.47 lb. The dc-powered system typically consumes just 7W to 10W of power and can withstand temperatures ranging from –40°F to +158°F and up to 50g of shock. The R Series expansion system provides high-performance signal conditioning and industrial expansion I/O for PCI or PXI/CompactPCI R Series FPGA devices. The RIO FPGA circuitry at the heart of the CompactRIO system is a parallel processing reconfigurable computing engine that executes embedded LabVIEW applications deterministically at rates up to 100 times faster than previously possible. The CompactRIO product line includes cRIO-9002 and cRIO-9004 real-time controllers with industrial 200-MHz floating-point processors, the cRIO-910x family of 4- and 8-slot reconfigurable chassis featuring 1-million or 3-million gate FPGAs and a wide variety of I/O types. Engineers can program CompactRIO hardware using LabVIEW, the LabVIEW Real-Time Module and the LabVIEW FPGA Module. CompactRIO systems are priced from $2,495, and CompactRIO R Series expansion systems are priced from $1,645. NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS, Austin, TX. (800) 258-7022.