LXI Day – Friday, May 23rd
Hosted by Testforce Systems
Note: To view/download the LXI Day invitation, click here.
Location:
Sandman Signature Hotel Toronto Airport
55 Reading Court
Toronto, Ontario M9W 7K7
Phone: 416-798-8840
http://www.sandmansignature.com/
Note: Parking is free.
Time/Date:
9:00 am – 2 pm, May 23rd
Registration:
Please email Barb Estes at admin.lxi@lxistandard.org to register for LXI Day. There is no charge.
Agenda
9:00 – 9:30 Welcome and LXI Overview
Bob Rennard, LXI Consortium President
9:30 – 10:00 ComDev
LXI Adoption Among Small To Medium Size Test And Measurement Equipment Manufacturers
There has been an explosive emergence in the adoption of LXI instrumentation among the market leaders in the Test and Measurement industry. The technology presents clear advantages over legacy bus topologies and many customers have been quick to embrace the standard. Unfortunately, LXI integration among smaller equipment manufacturers has been less enthusiastic. This presentation discusses existing barriers to entry for small to medium size Test and Measurement Equipment manufacturers. (M. Rosato-COM DEV Ltd.)
10:00 – 10:30 Testforce Systems
Integrating LXI-based Systems: A Manufacturer’s Viewpoint
This discussion will address integrating standard LXI-based systems from a system manufacturer’s viewpoint, relative to adding requirements that drive a custom/in-house switching design. Two different approaches will be explored, one using a generic LAN interface as the primary communications link to the rest of system, and another that incorporates an LXI Class A OEM interface kit. The discussion will highlight the advantages of using LXI technology in the system, including interoperability, triggering and time-based synchronization. The various steps that are required to add these capabilities to the generic LAN implementation will be presented, and compared to the ease that this can be accomplished with an off-the-shelf OEM kit.
10:30 – 10:45 Break
10:45 – 11:15 Messier Dowty
Challenges in Developing a Multi-Channel High-speed DAQ System
This presentation describes the challenges in developing a multichannel high-speed data acquisition system used in the structural testing of aircraft landing gear. The discussion will detail how implementing LXI-based technology helped achieve high accuracy of data critical to the application. The distributed backplane, inherent in devices that incorporate a trigger bus designed to LXI Class A specifications, is used to distribute an ADC sampling clock such that multiple acquisition boxes are effectively sampling off the same clock, resulting in minimal skew. The trigger bus line is also used to sync the start of the acquisition, to ensure that all samples in memory across boxes are aligned. A LabView application was written to manage the large amount of data that was being moved out of the boxes and the built-in device web page was used in conjunction with standard LAN interfaces to greatly simplify setup of the system.
11:15 – 11:45 Agilent Technologies
Antenna Measurement Application
This Antenna Measurement Application uses a LAN-based Network Analyzer and Signal Generator positioned 1,000 feet apart using wireless communication. The instruments sequence rapidly through 101 frequencies without computer control. This application relies upon Class B LAN message packets to form an asynchronous handshake, but they can also be synchronized using IEEE 1588 time triggers without handshaking. This application is conducted using vendor equipment that supports List Sweep Mode
11:45 - 12:30 Break/lunch
12:30 – 1:00 VXI Technology
Hybrid Systems
The VXIbus architecture has proven to be an ideal solution for high channel count applications that require extremely tight synchronization between multiple instruments and mainframes. Additionally, VXIbus products have historically integrated quite easily with other open-instrumentation platforms and communication buses such as IEEE-488, IEEE-1394 and USB 2.0, providing a very stable platform, independent of rapidly changing PC bus architectures. The introduction of instrumentation incorporating the LXI standard allows VXIbus devices to leverage advances in Ethernet technology based on LXI. This presentation will discuss applications in which many benefits derived from the LXI specification have been seamlessly integrated into legacy VXIbus systems through a VXI-LXI bridge device (slot 0 interface).
1:00 – 1:30 Keithley
Example Applications of an LXI Class-B Enabled Switch/DMM
LXI Class B LXI technology is starting to change the way test systems are designed and built. Being able to rely on a common sense of absolute time to within a few microseconds across multiple Class B enabled instruments presents new opportunities for increase performance and flexibility for test system designers. Systems can be designed to take advantage of this capability instead of the traditional reliance upon the use of delays, in/out trigger loops and other “tricks” to control time critical events. Rather than the typically ad-hoc approach to “system tuning” through various delaying mechanisms, systems can instead be made completely deterministic in time with regard to event sequencing and triggering once a common sense of time is achieved.
1:30 – 2:00 Evaluations/Demos/Close
For more information contact:
Bob Helsel
Executive Director, LXI Consortium