How to use LabVIEW FPGA on Custom FPGA board other than NI products .....Also how to develop RTx DLL for a customised motion controller hardware

[CODE WARRIOR]

I'm using RTx, LabVIEW RT and LabVIEW FPGA.

The GUI is windows based. The motion control and FPGA  are RTx based.

Is there any way to develop device drivers for the custom hardware in RTx. For example motion controller hardware, FPGA hardware, PCI hardware.

Is there a possibility to use custom FPGA boards to use with LabVIEW FPGA.

Please send me some links

Thanks

Bhoopathy

[Efosa O.]

CODE WARRIOR Hello. I believe this question was answered in a previous post. Please let us know if you have any new questioins or if you need some clarification.

You are able to develop device drivers for your custom hardware using the NI Measurement Hardware Driver Development Kit.

However, it is not possible to use custom FPGA boards with LabVIEW FPGA. The FPGA boards have to be one of our R Series boards. Here are some links that should shed some light on the Measurement Hardware DDK.

Measurement Hardware Driver Development Kit Frequently Asked Questions

Please post if you have further questios.

Efosa O.
NIAE

[CODE WARRIOR]

Thanks for the reply.

I already have the windows DLL for the custom hardware.

(1) Now I need to port the windows DLL into RTx DLL. So I can access the hardware (connected to PCI) from the RTx.

(2) Can LabVIEW FPGA module able to produce bitstream file? if yes whether it can be used as a deployment file in custom FPGA hardware?

Thanks

Bhoopathy

[Efosa O.]

CODE WARRIOR hello.

Yes LabVIEW FPGA creates a bitstream. The LabVIEW FPGA module version you are using will determine exactly how this bitstream is created and stored. In LabVIEW 8.0, it will be located wherever your project is in your computer. As far as using that with other FPGA boards (non NI boards) I doubt that this would work. I know we do not test this as we don't have reason to.

You can try it, but I doubt this would work. Please keep us posted.

Efosa O.
NIAE

[CODE WARRIOR]

Thanks for the reply.

Sure I will try to port LabVIEW bitstream into custom FPGA hardware.

Can I have some idea on how to do this. so that I can access it from LabVIEW

(1) Now I need to port the windows DLL into RTx DLL. So I can access the hardware (connected to PCI) from the RTx.

Thanks

Bhoopathy

[Efosa O.]

CODE WARRIOR hello,

I am not certain how you would port the bitstream to a third party FPGA card. I can only explain how to do this with our FPGA card. Like I said in my previous post, this is likely not going to work.

In order to download a bitstream to our FPGA cards, once you compile the FPGA VI (targeted to the FPGA card), it gets downloaded to the card. In order to run it, you can either hit the Run button on LabVIEW or create a LabVIEW host application that would run the VI.

Efosa O.
NIAE

[Christian_L]

The LabVIEW FPGA bit stream is specific to the FPGA that is used on the RIO board as well as the hardware configuration (analog and digital I/O lines, communication link over PCI to the host application). Therefore the bitstream will not work on other FPGAs or even the same FPGA with a different hardware configuration.

[CODE WARRIOR]

Thanks. I understand the complexity.

Bhoopathy

[CODE WARRIOR]

I appreciate your support

I hope I can program the FPGA with other development environments such as xilinx ISE.

Anyway, I'm not giving up. will find some other way to do it.

LabVIEW -(interface)- custom FPGA

Thanks

Bhoopathy

[oliverho]

Hello,

I have the same Question.

Is it still not possible to use a custom fpga board with labview?

It would be a great feature!

With Matlab it is possible and very easy.

I have a very compact zynq board and I would like to run a realtime core on it.

Best Regards,

Oliver