National Instruments

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National Instruments

logo
legal form Corporation
ISIN US6365181022
founding 1976
Seat Austin , Texas
management Alex Davern (CEO)
Number of employees 7084
sales approximately $ 1.2 billion
Branch Automation technology , measurement technology
Website www.ni.com
As of January 15, 2016

National Instruments is a company from Austin , Texas , USA , which manufactures hardware and software . National Instruments is traded on the US electronics exchange NASDAQ under the abbreviation NATI. National Instruments products help engineers and scientists develop, prototype and implement measurement, test, control and embedded applications.

Virtual instruments concept

The concept of virtual instruments is regarded as a groundbreaking further development in software.

"One speaks of a virtual instrument when measuring systems tailored to the measuring task are created from a standard personal computer by means of suitable software in conjunction with the corresponding measuring hardware, which are otherwise only reserved for a stand-alone measuring device designed for the measuring task."

NI LabVIEW as a graphical development environment

This concept is based on the NI LabVIEW software , which offers a universally applicable and user-specifically adaptable software engineering platform. In contrast to classic text-based programming tools and their obvious limitations, LabVIEW offers a graphical development environment and gives developers the option of graphical programming using the G.

Graphical system design

The origin of graphical system design goes back to the conception of LabVIEW as system design software. The graphical system design approach is the methodical basis for developing measurement, control, regulation and embedded systems quickly. This gives the researcher a variety of research options without having to spend an inordinate amount of time creating a system from scratch just to get the right measuring device for researching a physical phenomenon. Graphical System Design allows him to get results faster, regardless of whether he is colliding atoms at CERN or working on the development of next-generation cancer detection systems. Across many different disciplines - be it atomic research, biomedicine, nuclear fusion or sophisticated robotics - researchers and scientists use the approach of graphical system design.

Products

software

  • NI LabVIEW is a graphical development environment with which so-called virtual instruments (VI) can be created, which consist of a front panel (graphical user interface) and a block diagram (graphical representation of the program logic).
  • NI LabWindows / CVI is an event-driven ANSI-C programming environment. LabWindows / CVI uses the same libraries and programming tools as LabVIEW. The software is aimed at developers who are familiar with text-oriented programming languages ​​such as Java, C or Python and who want to create user interfaces.
  • NI Measurement Studio is a collection of measurement tools designed specifically for Visual Studio 2010, 2008, and 2005 programmers. The software offers measurement and automation classes as well as Windows and Web Forms control elements for Visual Basic .NET and Visual C #.
  • NI TestStand is a development environment for automated measurement and test systems. In a test sequence, various steps are carried out in sequence and a report is generated at the end. The test steps can be written in different languages, including LabVIEW or LabWindows / CVI, and the order in which they are processed can be adapted to the output of the test steps.
  • NI DIAdem is software for managing, evaluating and displaying measurement data. Reports and evaluations can be created based on a large number of ready-made functions and the result can be displayed in diagrams or tables.
  • NI Multisim is CAD software that can simulate not only the creation of circuit diagrams and circuits, but also how they work.
  • NXT-G is a standard programming software for Lego Mindstorms , with the help of which young beginners can be introduced to graphic programming.

hardware

  • PXI is a further development of the PCI and CompactPCI (cPCI) standards for measurement and automation technology.
  • NI CompactDAQ is a modular data acquisition system that connects to a computer via USB, LAN, or WLAN. Depending on the type of measurement, special modules are used that already have integrated signal conditioning.
  • NI CompactRIO is a control and regulation system with a metal housing, which is based on a real-time operating system and an FPGA and can therefore be operated independently.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Annual Report 2014. (PDF) National Instruments, accessed January 5, 2016 .
  2. a b Rahman Jamal; Herbert Pichlik: LabVIEW (media combination ): 4th generation programming language; the user book. 2nd rev. Ed., Prentice Hall, Munich; London; Mexico; New York; Singapore; Sydney; Toronto 1999, ISBN 3-8272-9589-0 .