What is a controller ?

[Julien_31]

Hello,

This question doesn't concern PXI only, it is more general: what is a controller ? Is it used only to ensure the bus management ? What functions does a standard controller carry out ?

Thank you in advance,

Julien

[ClementG]

Hello,

A controller is the device that is managing all the communications of your PXI with the diferrent module. In the case of a PC setted up with a daq card the equivalent of the controller would be your processor (pentium or anything else)as well as the ram memory, the hard disk, the PCI slots etc...

For a PXI system, the controller can have different aspects, you can find a wide range of PXI controller that are suitable for particular applications, for example you can find real time embedded controller for PXIs. the controller is generally composed of an hard disk with your OS (Windows, linux...), a processor, video card, usb port, screen connexion, mouse keyboard connexion...

Basically, the controller can represented as the brain of your equipment.

Hope this will help you,

Regards

[Julien_31]

Thank you very much !

Julien