How to create Automated test environment with NI VeriStand?

[narra]

We have to develop an automated test environment for our project. So for this we are planning to proceed with NI VeriStand and Lab VIEW. So need your suggestions.

Here is the Concept:

1) We have a Microcontroller from NI (uC) with all interfaces like CAN, 2 SPI and UART, and this uC board is interfaced with PXI via CAN, SPI, UART for data acquisition. Then this captured data by PXI sent to Windows PC which is running VeriStand and Lab VIEW and at the same time these results have to be documented in a .txt file (for example).

Here below are my questions:-

1) For creating result file like example (.txt file) in VeriStand what should we do? Do we need to do some programming in Lab VIEW? Let us say a (.VI) script file with all the driver exposed API functions like read, write etc.?

2) Here below I am attaching a pdf file with test bench concept for your reference. Please give me your suggestions?

[DLClark · Accepted solution]

Hi narro,

You have the beginning of a test stand design and you have more steps to go before you can build and program it.

Veristand itself doesn't make a text based data file such as a comma separated variable file. It's native format for its logger function is tdms which is actually very good for storing and analyzing data. Veristand can create this file with no programming. It measures a channel list that you generate and logs the data to a file at an interval you specify, say 1 sample per second. This logger is somewhat primitive since you have to manually change some of its settings each time you use it. But it doesn't need any programming.

But... this is almost at the end of your design process. You must define channels and create them in the Veristand system definition before you can log their measurements. If you plan to do a functional test on the micro-controller board you will need to program the sequences and, at a lower level, tell the PXI computer exactly what to send and receive for each of the communication channels. If you have all this working already, the data logging will be easy. If it isn't working yet you will have to break the project into sections and complete each section before you can go on.

Do you already have the PXI hardware and Veristand software?

Dave

[narra]

Dear Dave,

Thank you for your reply. If you are ok we will communicate through email vamnarra@gmail.com

Do you already have the PXI hardware and Veristand software?

We will order it in coming weeks. But before that we need to know the time we are investing on the concepts is worthy enough are not.

What do you mean by defining channels and create them in Veristand system definition?

Do you mean we need to configure VeriStand Engine in PXI and then do we need to add our hardware communication channels like CAN, SPI, UART of Micro Controller in VeriStand system definition ?

Do you have some links for the tutorials on how to define channels and create them in VeriStand System Definition?

 Yes we need to do functional test on the micro-controller board.

What do you mean by programing sequences ? and in which programming language we need to program these sequences?

How tell the PXI computer exactly what to send and receive for each of the communication channels?

Do you mean by programming sequences. PXI computer can send and receive data through communication channels?

Do you have some links for the tutorials on how to program sequences?

Regards,

Narra.,