Hi Guy
NI Signal Generators support five modes of operation: Standard Function, Frequency List, Arbitrary Waveform, Arbitrary Sequence, and Script Mode. Typically the Standard Function and Frequency list modes are ideally generated using a module that uses a technology called Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS).
The NI 5412 is an arbitrary waveform generator and does not support DDS to generate standard function waveforms. Although having said that, the niFgen driver for the NI 5412 does support Standard Function mode. This is implemented through the Arbitrary Waveform mode by the driver. niFgen creates the waveforms to be generated based on the configuration for the Standard Function mode. Unfortunately, the Frequency List mode is too complicated to be implemented using the arbitrary waveform modes.
This attached example though will generate a frequency sweep using the Arbitrary Sequence mode. It creates all the waveforms necessary and the sequence instructions for the sweep.
Since all the waveforms and sequence instructions must be downloaded to the AWG memory, it is easily possible to configure the example to create a sweep with too many steps for the memory of a module.
Jerry
