NI CompactDAQ synchronization with LORD Microstrain sensors

[woodd]

Hello, I hope I'm posting in the right location, let me know if I am not.

I'm looking to collect data from both a NI CompactDAQ and a LORD Microstrain wireless sensor system. I'm currently in the process of buying hardware, but I'm looking at the NI cDAQ-9189 chassis (with various input modules) and the LORD Microstrain WSDA-2000 gateway (with various wireless sensors). I know that I can connect both systems to a laptop and take data using labview (using microstrain's MSCL library). My issue is with synchronization of the data. I will have a GPS connected to the WSDA-2000, so all data coming from that should be synchronized with a GNSS time stamp. I'm wondering what my options are for synchronizing the NI cDAQ data with the data from the WSDA-2000 and what level of synchronization I can expect.

My first thought is perhaps there is some way to get a GPS time signal to the cDAQ, but it looks like that is only possible with a cRIO system, is that true? And if I do get a cRIO system, is it possible to just connect the WSDA-2000 directly to it instead of the computer, and what benefit is there to that?

My second thought is that maybe there is a way to send a trigger from one to the other, but I can't seem to find any documentation on how to do that.

Any suggestions are very welcome.

[JosephFP · Accepted solution]

Hello woodd,

I found this other forum post that looks to have similar questions to the ones you are answering. To get the level of synchronization you are wanting, I would imagine that you would want to look more at the National Instruments Real Time systems, as the answer in the other post mentions.

https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Synchronisation-of-DGPS-amp-cDAQ-Linux/td-p/858345

Check out this post, and if you have any more questions please dont hesitate to ask! 

JFP

[woodd]

Ok, yeah I think I agree. The more I look at it, it doesn't look like there's any good way right now to get a trigger signal in or out of the LORD system and it doesn't look like they support any kind of network synchronization. So I think GPS might be my only solution, and I'll need cRIO for that. Unless anyone has a better idea!

Thanks Joseph!