Best way to create test for applications using NIDAQ

[bcharan]

I am new to a company that uses the 6602 card for data collection.  The program needs improvement -- and I would like to develop a testbench that we could run all changes against.   Is there software provided by National Instruments, or third party software that I could use to simulate a test run -- and we would be able to test our software without it actually running against an actual NIDAQ card?

Ideally i would like to create a test suite -- have the simulation run -- and have the results automatically compared to what we are expecting.

Thanks

Brad Charan

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

I think DAQ 7.5 and above allow for simulated devices so you can test your software without having the actual hardware installed in the PC.

[Dennis_Knutson]

I would like to add that the simulation in DAQmx is somewhat limited. Per the help: "All NI-DAQmx simulated devices return analog input data in the form of a full-scale sine wave with three percent of full-scale noise. When multiple channels are in the task, the data for each channel is offset five degrees in time.".

If you wish to simulate more complex signals, then that's something you're going to have to write yourself. One way to do that is to put all of your DAQ reads in a subVI that has a case statement. One case has the actual DAQ function and the other case will generate a simulated signal. Look on the Analyze>Waveform Generation palette to see some of the options for generating waveforms in software.