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VSB-TUO ›Study ›Exchange students ›Erasmus+ ›Course catalogue for Erasmus+ students ›Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

ECTS Course Overview



Virtual Instrumentation I

* Exchange students do not have to consider this information when selecting suitable courses for an exchange stay.

Course Unit Code450-2028/06
Number of ECTS Credits Allocated6 ECTS credits
Type of Course Unit *Optional
Level of Course Unit *First Cycle
Year of Study *
Semester when the Course Unit is deliveredWinter Semester
Mode of DeliveryFace-to-face
Language of InstructionEnglish
Prerequisites and Co-Requisites Course succeeds to compulsory courses of previous semester
Name of Lecturer(s)Personal IDName
BIL45prof. Ing. Petr Bilík, Ph.D.
Summary
Students will get familiar with the basic principles of software and hardware tools for designing the virtual instrumentation systems and they will learn basics of graphical programing language G and development system LabVIEW.
Learning Outcomes of the Course Unit
The goal of Virtual Instrumentation I course is to get familiar students with hardware and especially software tools which are used for creating automated measurement systems. Students will get familiar with philosophy of graphical development environment.

The basic programming skills in graphical development environment.

1. The concept of Virtual Instrumentation, the use of LabVIEW for writing applications for measuring, analyzing and displaying signals
2. Basic introduction to the LabVIEW graphical development environment.
3. Creation of VI
4. Loops
5. Program debugging methods
6. Array and Cluster
7. Program structures
8. Modularity and creation of subVI
9. String
11. Data visualization – Graphs
12. Error Handling
13. Basic work with files
14. Coding standards and style in LV
Course Contents
Lectures:
1.Virtual instrumentation as generous trend in measurement instrumentation, architecture of automated measurement system, basic philosophy of development environments used in graphical programming.
2.Introduction to LabVIEW development environment, main parts, data flow driven paradigm, debugging tools, stepping, visualization of data flow, probes, break points.
3.Graphical user interface of virtual instrument, front panel, objects of front panel, data types, structures, modes of front panel objects. Block diagram of virtual instrument, end points - terminals, definition of data paths, SubVI, data-flow.
4.Creation process of front panel, properties and modification of front panel elemensts. Numeric elements data type and its change. Enumerator. Properties of boolean elements - mechanical action. Text strings. Subpanel, Listbox. User defined help.
5. Code implementation - block diagram. Program structures: FOR-type cycle, WHILE-type cycle, CASE, Sequence, math expression block, indexing in input and output tunnels, shift registers, polymorphism of functions.
6.Context help, searching for functions and code examples. Debugging techniques, breakpoints, probes, conditional probes. Error handling. Code documentation.
7.Modular application development. Creating SubVI, Connector, Icon. Using SubVI. Polymorphism of basic blocks. User-defined front panel objects, completing the front panel by importing graphics, animating objects on the front panel.
8.Data structures: field, cluster, and work with them. 1D and more dimensional arrays, field work functions. Initialization, field autoindex. Cluster: designation, creation, modification, reading of elements.
9. Graphs and visualization of numerical data. Splitting of graphs and utilization of individual types. Modify graphical form of graphs: colors, raster, curves, auto-skating, axis formats, cursors, legend of a graph. Methods to display multiple curves in one chart.
10.Archive data in files and file functions. Write and read data from a file. Text files, binary, LVM, TDMS, INI. Elementary functions for file handling. Advanced Features - Advantages / Disadvantages. Creating a file path.
11.Function to work with text strings, formatting, scanning. Text strings, front-panel elements working with text strings, display modes, text strings - editing, replacing, searching, formatting and scanning functions, text string conversion.
12. Programmatic application architectures composed of subordinate tasks, data exchange. One Loop Architecture. LabVIEW state machine. Parallel run of 2 loops and data transfer between them: local variable, global variable, function variable, network-shared variable.
13.Setting of VI Running Features - VI Window Options, Setting Device Options, Creating Dialogs Using VI Run Options, LabVIEW Parallelism, Priority of Block Diagram Parts, Using WAIT for Priority Execution Control.
14.Property Nodes in a block diagram for programmatic control of front panel object properties - use for simple objects, object access, program-specific menu text-type menu completion, Property Nodes associated with graphs, Property Node item selection and mode.

Projects:
Software applications in G language oriented into measurement area.

Laboratories:
1. Introduction into development environment LabVIEW, graphical programming language G, main principles of graphical programming, Data Flow principles, modular programming, debugging tools LabVIEW.
2. Control program structure in G, FOR and WHILE loops, SHIFT registrs and using, implementation in floating average.
3. Array, indexing, auto-indexing in loops, functions polymorphism.
4. Cluster (structure), functions for work with structures.
5. Graphs, graph data structures. Semestral project setting.
6. Structure CASE, Formula Node, Strings.
7. Property nodes, using. Program controlling of front panel object properties.
8. Work with strings, string changing, searching, searching, formatting into, scanning from.
9. Application composed with more virtual instruments, sub-virtual instrument, data sharing between parts of application, global variable.
10. Work with files, types of files, using functions for data storing. Storing data into TXT data file, reading TXT data file.
11. Dialog windows, mode of virtual instrument running.
12. Work on semestral project.
13. Work on semestral project.
14. Semestral project evaluation, Tets, Award a credit.
Recommended or Required Reading
Required Reading:
[1] JENNINGS, Richard a DE LA CUEVA, Fabiola. LabVIEW graphical programming. 5th ed. Mechanical engineering. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2020. ISBN 978-1-260-13526-8.

[2] BLUME, Peter A. The LabVIEW style book. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2007, xxi, 372 s. ISBN 978-0-13-145835-2.

[1] VLACH, Jaroslav; HAVLÍČEK, Josef a VLACH, Martin. Začínáme s LabVIEW. Ilustroval Viktorie VLACHOVÁ. Praha: BEN - technická literatura, 2008. ISBN 978-80-7300-245-9.

[2] WITTASSEK, Tomáš. Virtuální instrumentace I. Učební text. Ostrava: VŠB-TUO, 2012

[3] JENNINGS, Richard a DE LA CUEVA, Fabiola. LabVIEW graphical programming. 5th ed. Mechanical engineering. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2020. ISBN 978-1-260-13526-8.

[4] BLUME, Peter A. The LabVIEW style book. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2007, xxi, 372 s. ISBN 978-0-13-145835-2.

Recommended Reading:
[1] JOHNSON, Gary W. a JENNINGS, Richard. LabVIEW graphical programming. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, c2006. ISBN 0-07-145146-3.

[2] BRESS, Thomas J. Effective LabVIEW programming. 1st ed. Allendale: NTS Press, 2013. ISBN 978-1-934891-08-7
[1] JOHNSON, Gary W. a JENNINGS, Richard. LabVIEW graphical programming. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, c2006. ISBN 0-07-145146-3.

[2] BRESS, Thomas J. Effective LabVIEW programming. 1st ed. Allendale: NTS Press, 2013. ISBN 978-1-934891-08-7
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Lectures, Experimental work in labs, Project work
Assesment methods and criteria
Tasks are not Defined