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What's the role of software in T&M?

Tom@Bbite

T&M kit is hardware. Originally stand alone, then connected, now modular or PC plug in. Will it ever get to being a virtual instrument on a PC? I sthat what you want? Is modular better than rack & stack? Is the software needed your own so it is fully customisable, a alnaguage or bought pre-configured test sets? Where is it all taking us and where do we want it to go?

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    Virtual instruments?  Yes, its here today led by NI, but for it to replace stand alone instruments is entirely cost driven.  Network instruments rule in production line tests, R&D and any situation where continous data needs to be gathered, analyzed, and documented.  Stand alone instruments are used mostly for field tests, design prototype and troubleshooting, where measurements need not be collated.  Data is integral to automated QA, reliability testing and many large scale device manufacturing needs.   A reason  virtual hasn't taken the market is the cost of modules are >= to that of stand alone instruments that can also be networked.  Iif the type of PC and bus support changes, one's old instruments are fully obsolete and nearly valueless in the secondary market.  Startup tooling can be more costly versus stand alone instruments.

     

    For all networked or virtual instruments, software is sine qua non, its what holds it together.   However, the T&M industry should study the needs of the entire market and design a basic suite that works for 90% if not 100% of needs from large design firms to the single user, just like the GUI exists for nearly all PCs, from Apple, Windows to Linux.  It should have the ease of use of consumer grade plug and play.  Its should be cheaper than was NI charges or it will continue to segment the market.

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    Software also separates the hardware from the display functionality

     

    outside of simulation there is always a need for some of the instrument to be physical, ie the probes and perhaps an ADC for each point requiring measurement, multiplexing could be used to increase the probe points but its a balance between bandwidth and monitor points. If you look the the new MDO / MSO oscilloscopes from Agilent and Tektronix you will see that most of the hardware is allbout capturing the inputs as fast as possible and then simply passing them to software for processing. if there was a fast enough channel to a PC fr example then all that functionality and more could be remote from the actual capture device.

     

    So i doubt you will ever get away from at least the capture devices but what you do with that data can become virtual (IE Frequency Analyser, Oscilloscope, Multimeter, Frequency Counter, logic analyser, protocol Analyser all have the need for the basic high speed capture device but the actual display and math and time corolation can be done in software and easily mixed and matched

     

    The issue I have found so far is that the software from specific manufactures do not allow integration with other vendor equipment and so this limits you from picking best in class from varied vendors or you have to resort to expensive third party software like matlab.

     

    this is one of the reasons I have started to write my own software, a good educational experience and hopefully a useful tool at the end of it

     

    Peter