ELVIS has entered the Laboratory

Tim Usher and Paul Dixon

CSUSBMGMT 541October 25, 2006

Presentation available for a limited time atwww.physics.csusb\~tusher\share

•Pig farmer•¼ ownership in corporate farm in N.C.•Contracted with Murphy Farms. Wendell Murphy shown on cover of Forbes magazine with one of our pigs.

Question: How is it possible to run a pig farm from 2500 miles away?

Answer: That is the best way to do it!

Who are you? (Buddy time)

Select a “Buddy” and address the following Who are you? (introduce yourself) Why are you here? (goals and objectives related to

this class) Dig deep Expand to groups of 4

ELVIS?Do web search :NI ELVIS -Presley

1991: Grant proposal to Hewlett Packard for computer interfaced electronics lab (DENIED).

1992: Hired Dr. Paul Dixon: PhD in physics and BS in electrical engineering.

1994: an NSF ILI grant to equip the electronics laboratory using LabVIEW and fully-interfaced equipment

1995: Physics 150 – Introductory Analog Electronics at the freshman level (before calculus, before intro physics)Ohms Law to Lock-in Amplifiers in 10 weeks

1996: Physics 350 – Computer-based Data Acquisition and Control at the junior level LabVIEW, GPIB, DAQ, Experiment Interfacing, Control Theory, ITR Filtering, PID, State Machines

1997: Physics 352 – Advanced Electronics at the senior levelLinear Response Theory, Integral Transforms, Analog and Digital Communication Theory, Noise Analysis, ORCAD PSPICE

Applied Physics Instruction at CSUSB - An Overview

Instructor station/server with LCD projector Windows 2000 peer-to-peer network, no outside line

12 Student Stations

The Student Station Hardware (Past)

• 850 MHz Pent III• 17” Display• LabVIEW• PCI DAQ

ProtectionModule

• PCI GPIB• HP Scope• HP FG• HP DMM

• Elenco Trainer

Simple launcher for tutorials and instruments

LabVIEW 3.1 - 1994

The Integrated Software Environment for FreshmanElectronics

GPIB DMM Function Generator Scope

DAQ Scope Arbitrary FG Voltmeter Counter Pulse Generator Digital I/O

Amalgam Bode –

GPIB FG & GPIB Scope Two-point IV Curve –

GPIB DMM & DAQ Arbitrary FG

Virtual and Amalgam Instruments for Freshman Electronics

The power boosting circuit

Junior LV Project – A PID Controller

The“Bug”

A standard project in the 7th week

GPIB Instrument Driver,

DAQ Analog IO, Feedback

Control Theory

Control

References,

VI Server,

etc.

Final Project - 2001 Circular Buffered Analog In,

Digital IO, State Machines

Junior LV Project - A Seismograph

Seismometer - a weighted speaker

Impulsive Tester -a sprinkler solenoid

Junior LV Project - PhototropeFinal Project - 2000 Buffered Analog In, Inline IIR Digital

Filtering, Digital IO, State Machines

Angled binocular photoresistive eyes, photogate “OWL neck” sensor, and a bi-directional two-speed baby-swing motor drive system

Fixed Breadboard Wear and Tear Dedicated circuits – makes concurrent sections impossible Wiring must be done in lab Instructor continually building demo circuits!

Standard DAQ Limited power in analog out

GPIB Instruments Difficult to integrate with DAQ, chunky communication

The Solution Integrate the DAQ interface and the trainer into a single unit with a

removable breadboard and protection module Add the functionality of the GPIB Instruments into the integrated

trainer

The Limitations of our Past Approach

1994 : Designed and built the initial protection modules for our

precious AT-MIO-16 cards

1998 : Designed and tested the Integrated Electronics Design

Station (IEDS) communication module at a student station

1999-2000 : Designed and built IEDS and showed it to NI

Summer 2001: Designed and built the Universal Laboratory

Instructional Station (ULIS) feasibility prototype in collaboration

with NI (Steven Romero, Anne Goshorn, Jeff Hall)

Fall 2001 to the Present : Happily watched NI design and build the

Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrument Suite (ELVIS)

The Development and Maturation of NI - ELVIS - An Overview

1998 - 2000 Fully Functional Major Power –

30 Watts! All of the capability

through a 68 pin E-series card and about 70 chips

IEDS: The Integrated ElectronicsDesign Station - The Functional Prototype

ULIS: The Universal LaboratoryInterfacing System - The Feasibility Prototype

ULIS Function Generator

ULIS Impedance Meter

Summer 2001 – a blur! The NI Design Team:

Steven Romero,

Anne Goshorn,

Jeff Hall

Fall 2001 – present

Any 68-pin E-series DAQ card

DMM and Scope on both breadboard and front panel

External power block ~ 18 Watts to breadboard

Finally, a main power switch!

NI - ELVIS: The Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrument Suite

The Breadboard 392 undedicated tie points Removable – 3 ring binder BNC, Banana, 9-pin Dsub Power LEDS Logic LEDS

NI - ELVIS: Hardware Features

The Protection Module High current lines fused Low current lines –

sacrificial inline resistors Power and DAQ interlock Replaceable in under

a minute

NI - ELVIS: The Current Instrument Software

Green – NI reworked and polished

Blue – My “hacked” examples in the process of being reworked by NI

BlackBlack – capabilities built into the hardware, on the “to-do” list

Addressable Digital I/O – allows for 16 bytes of write and 16 bytes of read to plug-in board @ approximately 250 Hz

ELVIS can read the plug-in board ID (0-255) allowing for a variety of dedicated boards with linked software

NI - ELVIS: Capabilities and Future Instrument Software

Lessons learned

People Myself: What do I want out of this? Money? Fame? Fortune?

Fun?

Time scales Business (very short) Academia (much longer)

Buddy time again

Electronics Publish electronics book? Education research: stealth mathematics Business: protoboards Elvis II (hardware) Graceland (software)

Develop other research into marketable ideas Remember: Wife + 2 kids

What is the next step?