TELKOMNIKA, Vol. 11, No. 6, June 2013, pp.

3427 ~ 3432
e-ISSN: 2087-278X
 3427

Design of Instrument Control System Based on

LabVIEW

Jiang Chao*, Xu Wu-bin, Li Bing

School of Mechanical Engineering, Guangxi University of Science and Technology, No. 268, Donghuan
Road, Liuzhou City, Guangxi Prov. China 545006. Telp : (0772)2686058
*Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract
In order to solve the problems such as poor expansion, long development cycle of instrument
control system developed by traditional programming language, using VISA module based on LabVIEW
platform was introduced. This paper presented a simplicity, intuitive instrument control system of
pneumatic measuring instrument, which was accomplished with graphical language LabVIEW. The system
could also complete the text data output. It was improved that the system based on LabVIEW achieved
instrument control efficiently, openly, with operating conveniently and good human-machine interface.

Keywords: LabVIEW/VISA, serial communication, instrument control system

Copyright © 2013 Universitas Ahmad Dahlan. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Instrument control technology plays a more and more important role in the field of auto
measurement, with the development of computer technology and requirements of the
electronics industry. Instrument control is the process that instruments are controlled by
computer directly through the exchange of commands and data between them. This process is
achieved frequently by textual programming languages in traditional way. But graphical
language LabVIEW bases on dataflow programming. Compared with traditional way, system
developed by LabVIEW more emphasises data processing procedure, and it makes it easier to
write the program, shortens development time, and reduces the difficulty of program design [1].
With a digital sampling and processing system designed with LabVIEW, in this paper, the basal
platform is constituted, and pneumatic measuring instrument is controlled by computer.

2. Methods in Instrument Control based on LabVIEW

Start

Have instrument Y Application Easy-to-use functions PNP

driver? program’s needs

N
Advanced functions IVI

Develop instrument Creat similar Modify existing

driver? driver?
Y Y driver

Template-based
Direct I/O driver
N

Figure 1. Process of Selecting Different Methods based on LabVIEW

Received January 20, 2013; Revised April 20, 2013; Accepted April 29, 2013
3428  e-ISSN: 2087-278X

Instrument driver is used to control the system hardwares, and then computer
communicates with them. The crucial part of choosing the right method is to see whether the
driver is given. Pneumatic measuring instrument described in this paper does not support any
API (application programming interface) and manufacturer identification code, so VISA is called
by LabVIEW. VISA, the acronym of virtual instrument software architecture, is the standard I/O
API of programmable instrument, and it can control GPIB, PXI, VXI, USB, RS232 and RS485
instruments. Compared with other I/O APIs, VISA is not limited by platform bus or development
environment, and in the system whether developed on Windows based on LabVIEW or written
on Mac with C programming languages, we could use the same VI (virtual instrument) [2, 3];
VISA can also call corresponding driver on the basis of instrument automatically, so the users
do not have to learn various of communication protocols, and then the process programming
efficiency is improved. The method has reference value for design of instrument control system.

3. Pneumatic Measuring Instrument

Pneumatic measuring instrument is the instrument that changes flow and pressure of air
to measure workplace size. The communication protocol of pneumatic measuring instrument is
the basis of developing control system. It is provided by instrument manufacturer and rules data
format in transferring.
The measurement data is XXH-XXH-XXH-0FF (low byte-middle byte-high byte-0FF), a
4-byte hexadecimal string (Table1) [4], which is ended up with 0FF. If we want to receive the
number with decimal display from the hexadecimal string, we should parse data based on frame
format first, and then convert it into decimal number. The final value N can be described like
this:
N=[(low byte  decimal number) 160 +（middle byte  decimal number） 162
（high byte  decimal number） 164 ]  0.0001
+

Table 1. Communication Protocol of Pneumatic Measuring Instrument

一、basic protocol
Baud=9600 Parity=N Data=8 Stop=1
二、communication protocol
55H/FXH Receive-address 0FFH Transmit-confirm
0AAH Transmit-confirm address 0EH Receive-minimum tolerance
08H Receive-measured value 00H/01H Receive-channel number
00H/01H Receive-channel number XXH Transmit-low byte
XXH Transmit-low byte XXH Transmit-middle byte
XXH Transmit-middle byte XXH Transmit-high byte
XXH Transmit-high byte 0FFH Transmit-confirm

4. Software Design
4.1. Physical Connection between Computer and Instrument
There are two main ways to connect instrument with computer: parallel communication
and serial communication. Serial communication has many common ways (RS232, IEEE1394,
etc.). In industrial production, we just need a few signal lines of RS232 to realize duplex
communication between instrument and computer. Considering the data size and the distance
of control, we choose RS232 as our physical connection [5, 6].
RS232, the signal voltage of which referenced to a system ground, operates in full-
duplex mode, and it can transmit and receive data at the same time. In this paper, pin2 (RXD),
pin3 (TXD) and pin5 (GND) are used (Table 2). The pin2, 3 of instrument are cross-linked to the
pin3, 2 of computer, and the pin5 of both are linked directly. With this connection mode, the two
communication sides can be regarded as data terminal equipments, and then both of them can
transmit and receive data.

Table 2. The Definition of RS232 Interface (DB9)

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TELKOMNIKA e-ISSN: 2087-278X  3429

Pin Name Direction Description

Pin1 CD ← Receive lin signal detector
Pin2 RXD ← Receive data
Pin3 TXD → Transmit data
Pin4 DTR → Data Terminal Ready
Pin5 GND — Ground
Pin6 DSR ← Data Set Ready
Pin7 RTS → Request To Send
Pin8 CTS ← Clear to Send
Pin9 RI ← Ring Indicator

4.2. Software Design based on LabVIEW

4.2.1. The Process of Programming

Star

Configure serial port

Address check

N
Address correct? Alarm indication

Transmit-read command Alarm

indication
N
Transmit-channel N
Y Y
Read data Data integrity? Data processing Exit? End

Figure 2. Process of Instrument Control System with LabVIEW

4.2.2. Platform Design

If we want to control a instrument through serial port, we must configure it first. the
process of configuring the serial port contains parameter setting and resource name selecting.
Four parameters-baud rate, data bits, parity bit and stop bit- must be determined between the
process of parameter setting. Resource name, the only VI refnum of instrument I/O, is generally
found in the ring of initialization VI. If there is not, we should write it by ourselves according to
the following format:

Interface Type [board index] :: Address :: INSTR.

The finish of configuring the serial port just proves the establishment of the channel, but
the conduction of the channel bases on whether the address is confirmed successfully or not.
The main part of the program is illustrated in Figure 3.
The commands received and transmitted in this paper are all shown in hexadecimal
directly, which is the simplest way to write in a hexadecimal string in LabVIEW [7]. There is a
gap in time between the write command and the read, the length of which depends on the
instrument’s ability of data processing and always lies from several ten milliseconds to several
seconds. As LabVIEW supports multithreaded application design and executes code in an
inherently parallel rather than sequential manner, we can put the time delay (200ms) or create a
sub-VI into a flat sequence structure to solve this problem (Figure 3).

Design of Instrument Control System Based on LabVIEW (Jiang Chao)

3430  e--ISSN: 2087-278X

Figure 3.
3 LabVIEW Program

Two pneu umatic meassuring instrum ment’s comm mends, 08H (receive-mea asured value e) and
0FH (receive-maxximum tolera ance), are sh hown in Figu ure 3, and th he process o of transmitting and
receivving data is the key part of the whole e program, during
d which exists rigoro ous order between
the two
t comman nds, that is to say, the e second re ead-in comm mand must ffollow behin nd the
comp pletion of gettting the retu
urned value from buffer cache in the e first comma and [8]. Fac ctually,
theree are two ma ain methods to realize se equential exe ecution in La abVIEW: erro or cluster lin
ne and
seque ence structu ure. the preco ondition of method
m of se
equencel stru ucture is tha at all codes should
s
be written
w in the
e same bran nch, which exists
e an lim
mitation due to some m more sophisticated
progrrams, howevver, the meth hod that sele ecting error cluster
c line to
o connect an nd guide data flow
helpss to change the order of o execution sequence more m simply. As to the iinstrument controlc
needing address check, transsmitting the second
s commmand directlyy without add dress check is not
allow
wed, which means the verrification is needed betwe een any two commands.
The result data return ned from the e channel is a 4-byte he exadecimal sstring. We ha ave to
conve ert it to a byte
b array fiirst, and the
en we separate the datta by “indexx array.VI” [9]. [ In
LabV VIEW, a inde ex starts witth 0, rather than1, so th he indexs of o 0-3, represent four de ecimal
nume erals transformed by low w byte, midd dle byte , hig gh byte and d 0FFH from m the hexade ecimal
string
g, and finally the result daata is calcula
ated through the formula which is givven in the pre evious
chaptter.
Display and
a save daata in real-tim
me is benefiicial to analyyse the resu ult, and it is more
conve enient to be achieved with LabVIEW W, compared with other te extual progra amming langu uages
(Fig.44). To displayy the data,we bundlen it from differen nt structures by name an nd then send it into
a wavveform chartt, which can n turn the da ata into wave eforms And display
d themm without any yother
opera ation; In the process of thhe data stora age, we need pay attention to that w we must build d a 1D
arrayy before we connect it to o “write to spreads file.v vi”; In order to make the e system ope erates
autommatically, we e use a while e loop [10], but the false e branch of the case strructure in the e loop
also outputs
o useless defaults, which we do d not want to t save in ou ur final file, sso we use an nother
csae structure to display the useless defa aults in the false
f branch,, and hide th he waveform m chart
which h used to dissplay them inn front panel.

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TELK
TELK
KOMNIKA e-ISSN: 2087-2
278X  3431

Figure 4. Data Display and

a Storage

The final instrument control

c system of pneuma
atic measurin ng instrumen nt is designed with
afore
ementioned method
m and the
t following pictures sho
ow the resultts in front pan
nel.

gure 5. Real Time Display

Fig y in Front Pa
anel

In this paper, only part

p of the communicati
c ion protocol is introduceed. if we waant to
imple
ement other functionalityy, such as geometric errror measurement, audible alarm, etc c., we
simplly change the corresponding comma ands on the basis of the original code. So it has some
refere
ence value inn instrument control syste
em developm
ment.

5. Coonclusion
A system m has been n developed by graphic cal languagee, which bre eaks throug gh the
limita
ation of textu
ual programiing language
e, such as poor
p extensibility, complexity in rela
ations,
structtural redunddancy and managemen nt difficulty. By controllling a pneu umatic meas suring

Desiign of Instrum
ment Controll System Bassed on LabV
VIEW (Jiang Chao)
3432  e-ISSN: 2087-278X

instrument in reality, we can find that the instrument control system based on LabVIEW is with
good scalability, and can be transplanted into other industrial control systems easily.

Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the Guangxi Science Research and Technology
Development Program (No. 12118015-7B, 10100026), and the Advanced Design and
Manufacturing Technology of Vehicle Components Foundation of Guangxi Province, China (No.
2012KFMS08, 2012KFZD02).

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TELKOMNIKA Vol. 11, No. 6, June 2013 : 3427 – 3432