NI LabView 8.5 adds statechart design module, simplifies multicore

Austin, TX — National Instruments ’ LabView 8.5 is the latest version of the platform which extends further into embedded and industrial applications with the new statechart design module for modeling and implementing system behavior and simplifies multicore and FPGA-based application development with its parallel dataflow language. By building on almost 10 years of investment in multithreading technology, LabView 8.5 runs on processors that can deliver faster test throughput, more efficient processor-intensive analysis, and more reliable real-time systems on dedicated processor cores, says the company. NI discussed advantages at its NIWeek 2007 conference, now underway in Austin.

LabView’s new statechart module helps engineers and scientists design and simulate event-based systems using high-level statechart notations based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) standard, NI says. The module also allows users a single platform to design, prototype, and deploy their systems quickly, combining familiar statechart notation with real-world I/O running on deterministic real-time or field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based systems.

“With the shift toward multicore processors on the PC, LabView programmers benefit from a simplified graphical approach to multithreading, making it possible for engineers and scientists to maximize the performance of multicore technology with little to no change to their applications,” says Dr. James Truchard, National Instruments president, CEO, and co-founder.

With the parallel dataflow language, users can map their applications to multicore and FPGA architectures for data streaming, control, analysis, and signal processing, NI says. Adding to the automatic multithreading capability of previous versions, LabView 8.5 scales user applications based on the total available number of cores and offers thread-safe drivers and libraries to improve throughput for RF, high-speed digital I/O, and mixed-signal test applications.

The LabView Real-Time environment allows designers of embedded and industrial systems to automatically load balance tasks across multiple cores without sacrificing determinism, NI says. Users can also manually assign portions of code to specific processor cores to fine-tune real-time systems or isolate time-critical sections of code on a dedicated core.

Also read, from Control Engineering : “Agreement: ISA, OAGi cooperate on data model standards”

NI provides more information about LabView 8.5; download the evaluation software.

—Edited by Lisa Sutor and C.G. Masi , Control Engineering Daily News Desk

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