Apex Waves specializes in the supply of mature and obsolete data acquisition and control products, and the National Instruments PXI system is a great example of this. Using a modular approach, the PXI system allows you to build a customizable and reconfigurable system for your data acquisition and control needs.
With a huge range of DAQ modules available in the PXI platform, it is perfect for building an avionics test system. In particular, military avionics have very specific requirements that are almost always constrained by proprietary standards. Using a modular, programmable PXI based system can help to reduce cost, time, and resources required when designing avionics test systems.
Using PXI modules with the LabVIEW application software, complex automated test environments can be developed. For example, Salex Galileo was tasked with building an automated test station for the Tornado aircraft multi-function displays. The displays use a mix of standard RGB video inputs, plus non-standard video inputs that required a flexible system to allow programming of both timing and amplitude levels. Their solution was to build a test environment based around the National Instruments PXI platform using modular waveform generators and I/O units.
Apex Waves can supply and provide maintenance on the obsolete National Instruments PXI-1050 chassis. This particular chassis is great for a range of applications and has the advantage of both PXI and SCXI standard slots, allowing you to upgrade but also keep your National Instruments SCXI modules. The PXI-1050 provides 8 PXI slots and 4 SCXI slots, with the latter also providing integrated signal conditioning. The PXI-1050 is compatible with all PXI controllers, provides four DC voltages per rail, +3.3, +5, +12 and -12 and forced air cooling from two integrated fans.
For flexible I/O signal, the now obsolete National Instruments PXI-7811R module was chosen by Salex Galileo for the Tornado test system. Along with fast waveform generation, the module includes a fully client programmable FPGA, using LabVIEW FPGA application software. The PXI-7811R offers 160 digital lines that can be programmed individually as inputs, outputs, and counters up to 40 MHz, or custom logic can be programmed with up to 25 ns resolution. Using the LabVIEW FPGA module and NI-RIO driver software, the module can be programmed for a range of applications, including hardware-in-the-loop and sensor simulation. The driver software is compatible with Windows operating systems from Windows 7 XP onwards, giving great backward compatibility. The PXI-7811R Series module requires LabView FPGA 7.1 or later and NI-RIO 1.3 or later.
Technology advances move fast and National Instruments is constantly updating their products. Apex Waves can supply mature and obsolete PXI equipment from National Instruments that can either keep your current system running or provide an upgrade route without the cost to replace legacy systems.
