Original Code Consulting Original Code Consulting

OCC Home Page  LabVIEW Programs for Download LabVIEW related publications LabVIEW Presentations  BotLabs Web Page - home of the Saurobots!  Links 

LabVIEW Related Publications
Peak Detector  CompactRIO SPI Interface  Compact RIO PCM Example  SP2 Data Acquisition System  Configuration File Writing  High Altitude Pressure Tests of NI Hardware  Compact RIO Pressure Test  RF Welder   Laboratory Reactor Data System  PALMS Mass Spectrometer  Saurobot - the first Battlebot powered by LabVIEW


Peak Detector  This LabVIEW FPGA program (LV 7.1) was written for a particle spectrometer being developed at NOAA.  By using CompactRIO hardware and LabVIEW FPGA, I developed a system that would generate a trigger close to the maximum of a Gaussian peak, regardless of the peak width or height.  The National Instruments User Solution (50KB, pdf) is available here or on NI's website.  A slightly longer version is also available as a Word document (387 KB).  The Word document is included in the zip file (793 KB), which also contains the source code for the programs.
   This paper was selected as a finalist in the Design and Research catagory of the NIWeek 06 paper contest.
 Peak Detector Signal
cRIO SPI  As part of a recent project, I developed a simple SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) reader using LabVIEW FPGA to write LabVIEW code directly into the FPGA hardware of a CompactRIO system.  This program is described in an Application Note (pdf, black and white, 160 KB).  The same document is available in Word format (color, 263 KB), and can also be downloaded from zone.ni.com.  The LabVIEW source code can also be downloaded (LV 7.1, 43 KB).
 SPI Timing Diagram
Compact RIO PCM Example  This Application Note (pdf, 656 KB) (also available at ni.com)  describes how CompactRIO can be used to measure Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) signals.  In our system, a Futaba radio transmits 8 channels of joysticks and dials using PCM.  The CompactRIO system measures the pulse widths of the channels to determine the current joystick and dial positions, as demonstrated in the picture at the right.
 Radio with Front Panel
SP2 Data Acquisition System  The Single Particle Soot Photometer (SP2) acquires data at random intervals as particles pass through a laser beam.  Triggers can occur from either of two channels, and data is simultaneoulsy acquired at 5MS/s from four channels.  In order to optimize the performance of the system and allow it to acquire data as rapidly as possible, a unique architecture was developed that utilizes a PCI-6110 high-speed digitizer and multithreaded LabVIEW software.  This white paper (Word format, 98 KB) describes this architecture which allows high-speed streaming of these random events to disk.
 SP2 Front Panels
Writing Configuration Files  A recurring problem I have encountered while developing LabVIEW programs in R & D environments is how to maintain a configuration file for the program while the hardware and software are quickly evolving.  Many methods of writing configuration information to disk become very difficult and error-prone to maintain as the hardware and software changes and as parameters are added or removed.  To address this issue, I developed a configuration file architecture with a number of features that ease maintenance under these conditions.  This architecture is described in an article that was published in LabVIEW Technical Resource (LTR)  (Vol 10, no 3, 2003).  That article (pdf format, 98 KB) is available here as a courtesy of LTR.  (LTR is no longer in business.)  The LabVIEW VIs, along with the article, are also available.
High Altitude Pressure Tests of NI Hardware  Validating LabVIEW-RT Platforms for Operation at High Altitudes  (Word document, 1.71 MB) is a white paper describing a series of tests I carried out in cooperation with National Instruments to determine the approximate altitudes to which various NI hardware could possibly be used in the development of airborne instruments.
Compact RIO Pressure TestWhen National Instruments was preparing to release the CompactRIO line of hardware, I performed another set of high-altitude/low pressure tests on the cRIO system, as described in this Customer Solution document (pdf, 1.74 MB).  This document can also be found on the National Instruments Developer Zone.  A condensed version of this article appeared in NI's Instrumentation News, Q1, 2005.
 PXI Hardware in bell jar for pressure test
  This system used a single National Instrument DAQ board to simultaneously monitor up to four independent, asynchronous RF welders.  The front panel is shown above with Welder 1 being displayed.  The system is described in the document:  Stretching Your DAQ Dollar (pdf format, 169 KB, from User Application Contest, NIWeek '00) RF Welder Front Panel
Laboratory Reactor Data System  This is a Laboratory Reactor Data System that I built for Roche Colorado using FieldPoint and numerous serial-port instruments.  This system used a data server architecture to simultaneously control and acquire data from two independent chemical reactors.  The front panel for one of the reactors is shown below.  The system is described in the document  A Multi-threaded LabVIEW ™ Data Acquisition and Control Program for a Laboratory Reactor System (290 KB, from User Application Contest, NIWeek '99) Laboratory Reactor Data System Front Panel
PALMS Mass Spectrometer  My largest LabVIEW project is a data acquisition and control system for the  Particle Analysis by Laser Mass Spectrometry (PALMS) instrument at the NOAA Aeronomy Lab.  (Additional information can be found on my home page.)  I presented this project in poster at NIWeek in 1998.  The poster was a runner up in the R & D catagory and I presented a talk at NIWeek 98 on it:  A LabVIEW Program for the Particle Analysis by Laser Mass Spectrometry Instrument (276 KB, Runner-up, Best R & D Application, User Application Contest at NIWeek '98.)  After that, I published a slightly revised version as a paper in Scientific Computing:  A LabVIEW Program for the Particle Analysis by Laser Mass Spectrometry Instrument(1.8MB, from Scientific Computing and Instrumentation, July, 1999.  Similar to the above but a much larger download.) PALMS Instrument Schematic
Saurobot - the first Battlebot powered by LabVIEW  Saurobot - the first BattleBot powered by LabVIEW
    As a member of the BotLabs combat robot team, I helped create the worlds first BattleBot powered by LabVIEW.  This document describes the embedded system running LabVIEW RT that gives the semi-autonomous Saurobot its advantage over the standard remote-controlled BattleBot.
 Saurobot - the first BattleBot powered by LabVIEW
In addition, I have co-authored several scientific journal articles and four magazine articles.
OCC Home Page LabVIEW Programs for Download Top LabVIEW Presentations  BotLabs Web Page - home of the Saurobots!  Links
Please report any bad links, other problems, or comments to: 

Site Map and Downloads