FPGA Analog Input with Scan Interface

[Jack_W]

Hi all,

I am rather new to the FPGA Module and have a question concerning analog sampling.

Before, I used a cRIO in scan mode to perform following tasks:

A state machine on the host PC performs one task after the other, e.g: output a voltage, run a stepper motor (with the NI 9512), Acquire voltage signals using the scan engine mode, logging data ; next voltage, next stepper position, next measurement, logging to the file,.... and so on.

Now, I want to perform the same task, however, with a sampling rate that exceeds the performance of the scan engine. So I think I need to jump to FPGA Mode.

The question is: Can I "mix" the measurement in FPGA while running others tasks of the state machine in scan mode? In more detail, I only "need" the FPGA Mode for the data acquisition, however, for running the stepper motor the Scan mode is perfectly fine and somewhat easier.

One idea of mine was to create a fpga-vi on the target that acquires a certain amount of voltage samples and sends it to the host. Now, could I run the state machine as I did before, just for the state "voltage measurement" refer to the fpga-vi on the target and get the data?

Thanks for any hint,

Jack

[crossrulz]

It would be best to not mix the scan engine and the FPGA.  Yes, you can do hybrid mode, but it uses A LOT of your FPGA resourses.  You can still use the state machine in your host, but you will just need to change the commands slightly to use the FPGA interface instead.  Use a DMA FIFO to send your analog data to your host to be logged.