Grosshansdorf, Germany. Spectrum has made available a number of academic tools that can be used to learn the basics of waveform generation, acquisition, and analysis. The tools are designed so that they can be used by teachers and other educators for structured learning classes or by students who wish to follow a self-tutorial style process. The academic tools are also helpful for first-time digitizer and arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) users wanting to learn the basics of these instruments.
At the heart of the academic tools is the SBench 6 software. SBench 6 is a program that provides a graphical user interface for control of PC-based instrumentation such as digitizers and AWGs. SBench 6 is especially designed for the high-speed instruments from Spectrum that cover the range from 100 kS/s up to 5 GS/s. A key feature of SBench 6 is that it can operate with simulated demonstration hardware allowing the user to effectively manipulate virtual instruments, without the need to have real hardware. The program not only enables simulated instrument control but it also allows data display, manipulation, analysis, and documentation. Installing the SBench 6 program on a PC effectively turns it into an easy-to-use virtual instrumentation platform.
The educational tools include the SBench 6 program, articles explaining its use, a step-by-step guide that shows the process for installing virtual hardware, and a number of examples that demonstrate how to create, capture, and analyze waveforms. The examples are easy to follow and explain the different ways that signals can be generated, how to make basic measurements (such as waveform parameters) and how to perform analysis (such as spectral analysis with a Fast Fourier Transformation or FFT).
The academic tools, including the SBench 6 software, academic guides, articles, and teaching examples, are available free and can be downloaded by visiting the Spectrum website.