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National Instruments (NI, www.ni.com), the Austin, Texas-based controls and instrumention supplier, announced LabView 8.5, the latest version of its graphical system design platform for test, control and embedded system development. Building on nearly 10 years of investment in multithreading technology, LabView 8.5 reduces the programming complexity commonly associated with sophisticated control systems based on multicore and field programmable gate array (FPGA) architectures. With the parallel dataflow language of LabView, engineers can balance several measurement and control tasks among the multiple processor cores available on today’s standard personal computer (PC) platforms. For added performance and reliability, LabView 8.5 offers deterministic, real-time multicore tools; new machine monitoring functions for both desktop and FPGA platforms; and expanded connectivity to hundreds of industrial devices using the open, OPC connectivity standard.
“Engineers and scientists depend on continually improving PC processors, operating systems and bus technologies to drive increased performance in their machine control systems,” said James Truchard, Ph.D., National Instruments president, chief executive officer and co-founder. “With the shift toward multicore processors on the PC, LabView programmers benefit from a simplified graphical approach to multithreading, making it possible for them to maximize the performance of multicore technology with little or no change to their code.”
According to NI, designers of industrial machines, robotics, mechatronics systems and industrial control applications can see performance gains from multicore technology by balancing parallel tasks, such as control loops, measurements and industrial communication, among multiple processing cores.
