sawtooth sweep generators

[hyma]

'm working on the development of a test and evaluation system for an air-borne radar using LabVIEW.

as an initial task, 'm asked to design a sweep generator that sweeps either in a traingular or sawtooth fashion. the frequency range of sweep is decided by either the start stop frequency or the central frequency and span as provided by the user.

i thought i wud use the ivi drivers for achieving the sweep but i feel i'm making it complicated.. can anyone suggest me a simpler approach to achieve the same? 

thanks in advance..

[RavensFan]

First, what is your initial problem?

Is it software and trying to figure out how to create a sawtooth waveform?  Look in the Waveform, Analog Waveform, Generation palettes.

Or is it interfacing with your hardware?  You don't mention what hardware you are using, yet you start talking about IVI drivers.  Don't even think about drivers until you have defined what you are trying to interface with.  And even then, you should avoid IVI drivers unless there is no other way to talk to the instrument.

[djs_at_eaton]

This is to Ravens Fan:

I attended a recent user group meeting where IVI was presented as a wonderful thing.  I haven't had any reason to use IVI yet, so I don't have an opinion, but I'd be interested to know why you refer to them as a "last resort."

[RavensFan]

I've never used IVI myself, either.  But everytime I read about it in the forums where the experts who have used it mention it, they always seem to say you are better off using a native LabVIEW driver for an instrument rather than an IVI.

[hyma]

For the project, on the whole, it is desired that PXI based hardware such as vector signal generators, data acquisition cards and signal analyzer cards be controlled and a total evaluation system be built by using LabVIEW.

As an initial task, i was asked to generate a gaussian noise whose mean and variance can be varied as per the user's choice. I tried to achieve the same by the use of MATLAB script node. Now it's output is to be shown on a physical signal analyzer, which i've no clue as of how to proceed. 

The next task given is to design a sawtooth or a triangular sweep generator that takes in the values of either start and stop frequencies or centre frequency and span to generate the sweep.  

I spoke about IVI drivers because the software in our lab already has sweep generator IVIs as per my requirement. But I hardly know anything about them and so as you said, would avoid using them.