Why and How NI'RT series Hardware?

[nonomiya]

Hi All,

I see the description below from wen,

>The RT Series Plug-In devices are embedded processor boards (7030) with standard National Instruments DAQ devices as daughter cards
>(6040E, 6030E, >or 6533).
Does this means ALL NI cards supported for RTX? for ETS?

For RTX and ETS, I am confused about the NI hardware support,
Is it necessary to use RT-series products on RTX and LabviewRT?
Is it necessary to use RT-series products on ETS, running program on RT-Target?

If ETX can meet hard real time, why we still need RT-PXI Controller and RT-Series Hardware?
running program on RT-Target of RT PXI Controler?
running program on RT-Target of PCI-7041/6040E?

It seems NI's web is not clear for this, for these combination and function definition,

Thank you!

[Thaison_V]

Hi nonomiya,

I hope you're doing well.  To clarify things a bit, you do not need to use a RT Series Plug-In device such as the 7030 to be able to do data acquisition in the Real-Time operating system (RTOS).  The RT Series Plug-in devices are essentially embedded Real-Time targets themselves with a DAQ board built in, so you would not need a RTX or ETS PC to use with it.  Having a RT Series Plug-in device installed in a RTX or ETS PC would be a bit redundant since you would have two Real-Time targets; one in the RT Series Plug-in board and one in the PC itself.  With a Desktop ETS system, you can use DAQ devices that supported by our NI-DAQmx driver.  With an RTX system, your DAQ device would need to be supported by the NI-DAQmxe Base driver.  In essence, for device support in LabVIEW Real-Time, view the readme for the driver.  The following KnowledgeBase discusses DAQ driver support in LabVIEW Real-Time systems.

Some of the more general questions about Real-Time are addressed in the LabVIEW Real-Time FAQ.  They discuss the RT Series boards more in detail as well.  In the end, most DAQ solutions will be solved by an ETS system with a DAQ device, as RTX and RT Series devices are more specialized hardware.  Let us know if this answers your questions though!

Thaison V
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[nonomiya]

Hi Thaison,

As I know,

There are four solutions for LabviewRT,
1. Use RTX with NI's standard DAQ cards.
2. Use ETS system with NI's standard DAQ cards.
3. Use RT-Series Plug-in devices
4. Use RT-PXI Controler with NI's standard DAQ cards

Am I right?

For I am newbie about NI's RT support,
I still have some questions as follows,

1.
The RT Series boards run independently of the host PC and Windows.
It is a complete solution with the processor board (ex: 7030) where the LabVIEW Real-Time code runs and the attached DAQ daughter board (6040E, 6030E, or 6533).

My question is:
Concerning to the daughter board support?
Does it mean NI support full range of DAQ card with the processor board (ex: 7030)?

2.
A real-time PXI/CompactPCI controller that can control an entire chassis of mixed I/O in real-time.
and the RT Series PXI controller is any National Instruments PXI controller with a preinstalled hard drive
containing the RT engine software running in a real-time operating system, rather than the Windows OS.

My question is:
Is *ETS* running on the RT-PXI Controller?
we should run LabVIEW RT program on the embedded system, right?

3.
for RT-Series Plug-in devices and RT-PXI Controler,

4.
we need a evaluator program to check if the hardware is qualified for RTX,
How about ETS?

5.
if we use RT-Series Plug-in devices that run as a RT-Target, how could we get the data?
from NI standard PXI-controller?

Could help to answer these quesions?

Thank you so much

[Thaison_V]

nonomiya,

The four solutions you listed are the ones available using our DAQ cards.  We do have FieldPoint controllers that run the Real-Time Operating System and can do data acquisition, as well as the CompactRIO products that use FPGA technology in conjunction with Real-Time.

1.  There are only a few specific RT Series plug-in boards available.  These have either an E Series board built into it, or a 6533 digital IO board.  The DAQ daughterboard on these RT Series plug-in boards are not swappable; meaning that you cannot buy any of our DAQ boards and use them with our RT Series plug-in boards.  These boards fit some specific use cases, so they may or may not be the ideal solution for your application.

2.  You can consider an embedded PXI controller running Real-Time as a system that is running Real-Time ETS.  The main distinction is that it does not run Windows, so it is not RTX.

3.  This doesn't seem to be a question.  Can you clarify what you are asking?

4.  The following KnowledgeBase discusses requirements for Desktop ETS machines.  We also have new options for automatically detecting compatibility with LabVIEW Real-Time 8.20, available here.

5.  If you use a RT Series plug-in device, you will not need a PXI controller to retrieve the data.  These boards will be used in a PC that runs a regular Windows OS.  These boards do not have hard drives on them, so you will need to transfer any data collected on them back to your host PC.  This KB talks about how to retrieve data from an RT Series Plug-in device.

I hope this is helpful!

Thaison V
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[nonomiya]

Hi Thaison,

many thanks for answer,
It have been more clear for the issue,

For item 3)
I want to know if ETS is running both on the RT-Series hardware and embedded system of PXI Controller?
or we can use the other RTOSs?

another two questions are,
1)
No matter what we use to be the RT Target, (RTX, ETS on PXI Controller, ETS on RT-Series devices)
we all need to build RT-target program by Labview RT, then to deliver to PXI、Compact FieldPoint、FieldPoint、PCI card modules and qualified desktop PC, right?

2)
If I have RTX/ETS system ready, that means I can use the following DAQ card modules in real time?
(M series|SC series|S series|R series|E series|B series)

thank you,
Nonmiya

[Thaison_V]

nonomiya,

An embedded PXI controller runs ETS.  You can consider the RT Series plug-in boards the same as well.  From the point of view of LabVIEW Real-Time using those two as Real-Time targets, you don't need to distinguish the two.  They both will be targetted pretty similarly.  The difference is that the RT Series plug-in boards don't have a local hard-drive, as mentioned in my previous post.

You are correct that no matter which Real-Time target, you will need to develop your VI in LabVIEW Real-Time and then deploy them to the Real-Time target.

If you have a Real-Time system set up, you will need to find the appropriate driver for your Real-Time system and determine if the driver supports the DAQ device.  The NI-DAQmx and Traditional NI-DAQ drivers support the S Series, E Series, and B Series DAQ devices.  NI-DAQmx supports the M Seris devices.  As discussed in this KnowledgeBase I mentioned in my previous post, ETS suports NI-DAQmx and Traditional NI-DAQ.  The Traditional NI-DAQ driver is a legacy driver, so if possible, I would choose a DAQ device that is supported in NI-DAQmx.  Another thing I should mention is that USB DAQ devices are not recommended as USB as a bus is not deterministic by nature.  The SCC Series devices are signal conditioning devices, so I wouldn't group them in with the M, S, E, and B Series DAQ devices, but you can use our Signal conditioning modules in a Real-Time system.  R Series devices are used for data acquisition, but they actually utilize an FPGA, so they need the NI-RIO driver.

For a RTX system, only the NI-DAQmx Base driver is supported, as mentioned in the KB I referenced in the last paragraph.  This eliminates some options for DAQ drivers, so an ETS system is a more flexible choice as far as devices go.  If you need help with hardware recommendations, I would recommend that you contact your local National Instruments Sales Engineer, as they can help suggest products that will best fit your application.  Thanks!

Thaison V
Applications Engineer
National Instruments