Today's Automation News Headlines from Automation.com

September 28, 2011 - National Instruments released NI VeriStand 2011, the latest version of its configuration-based software environment for creating real-time testing and simulation applications including hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulators and test cells. The intuitive, open software interface helps engineers achieve superior system flexibility while decreasing test development time. The version includes a real-time stimulus profile tool that greatly expands deterministic test execution with looping and branching structures, composable arithmetic functions, multitasking and more. Engineers can combine NI VeriStand 2011 with INERTIA, an add-on from Wineman Technology, which adds a suite of tools to NI VeriStand for optimized closed-loop control of dynamometer and servo-hydraulic-based test cells.

The new stimulus profile tool in NI VeriStand 2011 increases test development efficiency and system capabilities by making it possible for engineers to quickly create and reuse sophisticated test profiles. The tool includes an expansive library of structures and operators that significantly decrease test development time and increase test coverage. It also is enhanced with templates for common test routines such as multitasking and data logging and includes other features specifically designed to broaden test coverage and simplify code reuse in even the most demanding real-time testing applications.

The Wineman INERTIA add-on for NI VeriStand 2011 extends the software’s functionality for dynamometer and servo-hydraulic-based test cell applications. When combined with NI VeriStand 2011, INERTIA gives engineers advanced closed-loop control with bumpless mode switching, dither and other features that are useful for quickly and efficiently implementing real-time control and test applications. The add-on also includes tools for tuning and monitoring control loops and accounting for mechanical life cycle degradation through amplitude control. Additionally, INERTIA builds on the new stimulus profile editor in NI VeriStand to provide an application-specific test editor for more efficient authoring of deterministic stimulus profiles that interface with multiple actuator control loops.

NI VeriStand 2011 also provides expanded native support for 14 modeling environments. This functionality, combined with the other new features in NI VeriStand 2011, make the software ideal for increasing efficiency and capabilities in any real-time testing application.

“NI VeriStand 2011 greatly increases test engineers’ flexibility and efficiency, which are critical for keeping pace with the growing complexity of electromechanical control systems,” said Ian Fountain, HIL and real-time test platform manager at National Instruments. “With its major advancements for real-time test profile generation and test cell automation, engineers can create real-time test systems that will meet both present and future demands with a single off-the-shelf solution.”

About National Instruments
National Instruments is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware, and sells to a broad base of more than 30,000 different companies worldwide, with its largest customer representing approximately 4 percent of revenue in 2010 and no one industry representing more than 15 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has approximately 6,100 employees and direct operations in more than 40 countries. For the past 12 years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.