Integrating test and measurement tools into the design process allows engineers to identify design limitations early in the design cycle and validate designs prior to prototype construction. As a result, time to market is reduced and the usage of virtual and physical tests is improved.

No matter how simple or complicated a design seems to be, there are fundamental challenges a design engineer must solve. Things that appear perfect in the simulated world can potentially malfunction in the real world.

Since current design tools cannot simulate all the real-world dynamics, it becomes increasingly important to bring real-world data into the design software or vice versa for validation. So says Shawn Liu, LabVIEW Real-Time product manager at National Instruments.

To illustrate this point, Liu offers the following two examples that couple industry standard measurements tools such as LabVIEW with electro-mechanical design tools such as MSC.Adams and MathWorks Simulink.

The first example looks at an engine mount. When designing a mechanical component such as an engine mount, an engineer typically begins designing the product in CAD on a desktop PC. MSC.Adams allows the mechanical engineer to analyze the design, create a simulated test apparatus, and perform virtual tests. Validating the simulated version of the different engine mount designs allows the engineering team to build several prototypes of the finalized design options. These prototypes are then tested for validation to determine if they pass or fail.

LabVIEW 7 Express is a major upgrade to the LabVIEW graphical development environment.

If there is a failure, the data recorded during the testing may not always help to isolate the problem because it typically yields simple pass or fail information. However, real-world measurement data can do more than just validate the final prototypes.

"Flexible measurement tools, such as LabVIEW, allow engineers to easily acquire large sets of data from more extensive testing that characterizes the design, and then compares it with the simulated test results from MSC.Adams," explains Liu. "LabVIEW provides an interface to import and export data to MSC.Adams. Based on the comparison, engineers can build better simulated models and understand what other dynamics are involved in the real world but unaccounted for in the simulated world."

The second example looks at the development of an electronic control unit (ECU) for an engine. Typically, an engineer begins designing a control system for an ECU in a control design software package such as MathWorks Simulink. This tool allows the engineer to verify the basic operation of the control software, although there are cases where the engineer would need the ability to quickly verify the operation of the control software against the real environment with prototype hardware.

"With tools like LabVIEW, an engineer can easily import the control model and download it to a real-time hardware target to create a prototype control system," says Liu. "The built-in connectivity to real-world I/O in LabVIEW makes it easy to connect the control prototype with the real world and run validation tests. Instead of connecting the control prototype to the real world, which could be difficult and costly, it is hooked up to a model of the real world in the form of a hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) model. LabVIEW provides a real time platform to run the HiL models as well, thus providing the design engineer with the platform to do both real and HiL tests."These two examples show that synergy between measurement tools and design tools can yield dramatic enhancements to the overall development process. Of course, measurement and design tools have always sat on the workbench of many engineers. But, thanks to the recent push to integrate these tools, engineers are now able to test and validate while they are developing the product.

"Comparing theoretical or simulation results with real-world test results and combining control models with real-world I/O are just two examples of the many ways in which measurements and design tools can work together," concludes Liu. "Regardless of how engineers leverage the integration of these tools, they can benefit from it to deliver more robust and innovative products to the market."

More information is available by contacting National Instruments, 11500 N. Mopac Expwy., Austin, TX 78759, calling (800) 258-7022, writing in 60 on our reader service card, visiting www.ni.com, or replying online at www.pddnet.com.