Engine Simulation Toolkit Feedback

[StephenB]

Yes it will decrease time for other tasks. If you graph the "step duration" channel under the model, you can see the time your model takes to complete.

[spangck]

Hello Stephen,

I would like to modify the "Source".  But during compiling, Labview gave me an error.  Under "Dependecies", the "user.lib" tree, the OPENG libraries are missing.  After searching through NI, I was able to install OPENG libraries through VIPM.  But the "oglib" packages are not installed.  Searching further, I found out OPENG does not exist anymore, in particular to http://forums.openg.org, http://builder.openg.org, http://openg.org.

May I know how did you install these libraries?

Note: I did find the libraries from here:   http://sourceforge.net/projects/opengtoolkit/files

regards

Stanley

[spangck]

Hello Stephen,

During the "source file compilation", I receive this error code. Error code 1502.

The PXI system I am using consists of a PC connected to a RT PXIe system.

Note: I was able to use the built example provided by changing the FPGA to my setup.

Attached are the snapshot of the LabVIEW and Veristand screen.  I have also attached the PC and PXI system specification files.

regards

Stanley

[StephenB]

Hi Stanley,

Thanks for checking out the toolkit. Sorry you're running into issues.

To directly answer your question, I believe you're encountering an error build the engine LLB because you are missing the item linked the the "Open Source" section of NI Engine Simulation Toolkit for NI VeriStand

However, I have a question for you: Why are you opening the source of the custom device and building it yourself? There is no reason to open the source if you do not plan to make changes to the features of the custom device... which would be uncommon.

To simply use the Engine Simulation Toolkit, do not open the custom device code in LabVIEW. Instead follow these steps:

1. Download the zip file attached to the page with 'built' in the name (at this time named: Engine Simulation Toolkit NIVS 2014 v1.3.0 Built.zip)
2. Unzip the contents
3. Close NI VeriStand
4. Open the readme.rtf file and follow the instructions to install it
5. Open NI VeriStand
6. Open an existing or create a new project
7. Open the system definition
8. Right click custom devices and select National Instruments -> Engine Simulation Toolkit
9. Use the browse button to select a bitfile either you have built yourself or someone has provided for you. You can select the example bitfile included in the zip file if you want to explore the functionality of the custom device while you wait for your personal bitfile.

To create a bitfile:

1. Download the vip file attached to the page.
2. Install it with VI Package Manager 2014 or later
3. After installing, click 'examples' to navigate to the examples provided with the VI package
4. Open the examples to see how the FPGA IP is put together
5. Use the information from the example to create your own bitfile for your specific needs on your specific FPGA target

I really hope that helps. Have a great day!

[spangck]

Hello Stephen,

We are in the stage of evaluating NI PXI with FPGA or Compact RIO as a replacement to our existing Vehicle Simulator at Delphi.  For the past 3 months, we have been using the 2013 EST model "built" file (as described in the steps in this forum with success).  We were able to generate the CRANK and CAM signals.   The "bitfile (lvbitx) was compiled and generated using the 6 Cylinder example model after installing the EST package using VIPM 2014.

We have just recently upgraded NI to 2014, and would like to continue to enhance the EST further with additional customization.  This 2013-2014 EST toolkit meets our requirements as a replacement from the previous 2009 AES.  Note:  The 2009 AES does not support CRANK waveform from a CSV pattern file.

Looking forward, our future plans are to use the 2013-2014 EST toolkit and make further changes to include additional Analog outputs (Temperature sensors, etc), PWM outputs (Alternator, etc), PWM inputs (Tach, etc), Digital Inputs (Load relays, etc), Digital Outputs (PRNDL gear position switches, etc) and Transmission wheel signals (using CSV pattern files).  We are also interested to have different NI cards, besides the FPGA as a whole system.

We are sure you are very familiar with the 2009 AES model structure.  In AES 2009, there are two VIs.  The MAIN VI running on the Realtime PXI system, while the FPGA VI as a slave device.  This model allows us to develop enhanced vehicle model in the Main VI.

We have spoken to a NI support engineer, and we were told that the AES 2009 structure has been obseleted due to the new structure of 2013-2014 Veristand, hence 2009 AES cannot be used and it is replaced with 2013-2014 EST.

We would like to know the flexibility of 2013-2014 EST in the form of AES 2009.

Please see the attachment.

Note:  During compilation of the 2013 "Source", we realised the OPENG libraries are not available anymore.  But further digging, we were able to find them here

(http://sourceforge.net/projects/opentoolkit/files/).

If the 2014 EST direction is in favor, we think the OPENG libraries are required again.  The other problem we faced during compilation is the "Error Code Dialog.vi", it gave us a broken link in VI.  We are sure this is just a compatibility issues between the 2013 "source" with LabVIEW 2014.

regards

Stanley

[StephenB]

Hi Stanley,

Thank you for your continued evaluation of the NI Engine Sim tools. I appreciate any feedback in ways to enhance the toolkit myself so you do not have to make modifications yourself.

With that in mind, to add functionality to your FPGA code, you do not have to modify the engine simulation toolkit custom device. The only time you should modify the Engine Simulation Toolkit Custom Device is for engine simulation specific features that are related to angle based simulation, for example, to add something like ECU Event Waveform capture or additional features for pattern faulting.

If you want to add things like analog inputs, PWMs, etc, you can do that without modifying the Engine Simulation Toolkit Custom Device. Simply add these IOs to your FPGA and route the data to/from NI VeriStand using the standard NIVS FPGA interface.

Here is a helpful add-on to assist you with that: https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-35051

Here is a helpful example for PWMs: https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-16699

The regular NIVS FPGA interface can run in parallel to the Engine Simulation Toolkit Custom Device and simultanously access the FPGA. Therefore, use the engine sim stuff for engine sim, and the regular FPGA interface for anything else.

For your Vehicle Model.VI that you want to incorporate into the Engine Simulation Toolkit Custom Device, I would not suggest this. Instead, seperate out the logic of your model from the IO (remove the IO and just have the model), and compile the VI into a model using this procedure: http://www.ni.com/white-paper/12785/en/

This is very easy and quick and I think you will like it.

Anyway, I will go ahead and answer your direct questions presented in the previous post, even though I don't think you need to modify the custom device (as noted above). So I do not think you actually need to worry about any of the things below this line, but I wanted to answer then anyway just for your information. Thanks for posting these in such a well documented manner!

OpenG) You can acquire openG by opening VI Package Manager and selecting OpenG Toolkit from the list of available IP and selecting install.

Slide 3-7) This dll is installed by NI VeriStand, and is part of its .NET API. Since I develop the code in LabVIEW 2013, the source is linked to the 2013 version of that dll. When you open the code in LabVIEW 2014, it should link to the 2014 version of the dll, as you saw in the warning dialog. This is OK and expected. If you want to force LabVIEW to relink all of the project to the 2014 dlls automatically, you can place the attached file next to the project, close labview, and reopen it.

Slide 9-13) There appears to be a problem with the build. I looked into it and found that there is a name conflict occuring in the build between "initialize.vi" in my code and "initialize.vi" in the error ring's code. This conflict appears when building the code on your machine, and not on my machine, because I'm using a hidden feature of LabVIEW to remove edit-time dependencies from my LLB builds (as I don't need them in run-time code). Therefore, I never noticed this problem. I have flagged a bug to myself to rename the initilize.vi inside my code so that it does not conflict. In the mean time, you can use the hidden feature I am to make your build work. Open up your LabVIEW.ini file in program files (x86)\Labview 2014\ and add this line "NI_AppBuilder_SDist_ExcludeEditTime=True"

Slide 14) This may be related to the broken build, but this usually comes from a file conflict in the inside the "Public Documents\National Instruments\NI Veristand <year>\Custom Devices" directory. I would delete the 'engine simulation toolkit' folder there and retry building.

[bristolli]

Hi Stephen,

The toolkit is pretty good from my key customer's feedback. They ask me whether we have the bitfile for 7841R?

Thanks a lot!

Terry

[StephenB]

Hi Terry,

Glad to hear that! No precompiled bitfiles are provided. It is impossible to know the combination of hardware and IP they need to be successful, so someone needs to build one up. Its very easy though... lots of copy paste.

[bristolli]

Hi Stephen,

We found this precompiled bitfile below from your zip file. The customer wants to know whether we can share the LabVIEW FPGA code based on it. Then they can modify and compile with 7841R.

I don't understand what you mean by "copy and paste".  Please tell me what content needs to be copied and pasted in the zip file.

Thanks

[jarm.woo]

Hi, terry.

    firstly, you should install the EST library from VI Package, after that ,you can find the example of EST

FPGA source code as below: