NI Virtual Instruments

In October 2023, US-based Emerson has completed the acquisition of National Instruments (NI, formerly known as National Instruments).

The rapid proliferation of PCs over the past 20 years has led to a revolution in test, measurement and automation instrumentation. A major development in the ubiquity of the PC is the concept of virtual instrumentation, which offers several benefits to engineers and scientists who need to improve productivity, accuracy and performance.

A virtual instrument consists of an industry-standard computer or workstation equipped with powerful application software, cost-effective hardware such as plug-in boards, and driver software that together perform the functions of a traditional instrument. Virtual instruments represent a fundamental shift from traditional hardware-based measurement systems to software-centered measurement systems. Software-centric measurement systems take full advantage of the many powerful features of commonly used desktop computers and workstations, such as computation, display, and the Internet, that are used to increase productivity. While PC and integrated circuit technology has evolved and improved dramatically over the past 20 years, software is the real key to creating virtual instrumentation systems based on powerful hardware. New software-centered virtual instrumentation systems provide users with innovative technology and dramatically reduce production costs. With virtual instrumentation, engineers and scientists can accurately (user-defined) build measurement and automation systems that meet their needs, rather than being limited by traditional fixed-function instruments (vendor-defined).

The content of this column applies to NI ELVIS I, ELVIS II, ELVIS II+, ELVIS III, myDAQ, myRIO, NI's virtual instrumentation lab projects.