Labview compatible harware development

[tetego]

Hi,

I would like to know if it is possible to develop NI Labview  (Real-time Linux Op. system)  compatible hardware which includes fpga and cpu inside.

If it is possible, can you identify a document which describes the procedure, etc. (please note that once I produce the board, I would like to run my program using Labview)

Regards,

Engin

[Sam_Sharp]

No, not really.

I believe you can get the sources for Linux RT from NI and you can run LabVIEW RT on certain desktop configurations but I suspect the license would only allow you to do this on NI hardware. You'd have to get in touch with NI to be sure but I doubt you'd get any support from NI.

If you want the basics of an RT/FPGA system - look at the NI System-on-Module: http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/212787 It's a credit-card sized (ish) module which you can embed into your own application and it includes the reference designs etc.

[rolfk]

Sam is correct. The NI Linux RT source code is available on GIT and you can compile that yourself for just about any target you would like (but it is a tedious process and not recommended for someone who doesn't have some serious experience in compiling AND configuring his own Linux kernels from scratch).

But with that you have only 10% of what is necessary to get a LabVIEW capable realtime target. You also need the LabVIEW runtime system for your target, NI-RIO drivers, NI-VISA, and a whole bunch of other NI-something drivers before you get anything even remotely comparable to a real LabVIEW relatime target. And all these NI-something software and especially the LabVIEW runtime are not only fully closed source but also very carefully protected. While you could do something like an alternative VISA implementation since there exists a very elaborate software specification from the VXI P&P Alliance for it and there actually exists an open source project for that, this is absolutely not true for the other drivers and the LabVIEW runtime.

Even if you manage to get the LabVIEW runtime and other drivers somehow extracted and installed on your system (which NI does not support in any way) NI requires you to pay runtime license costs for every such installation anyways. Not doing so is a copyright violation that NI will pursuitt to the maximum extend allowed by the law.

There was some company from China some time ago who claimed to have developed hardware based on the Zync chip that NI also uses, which was supposdly working with the LabVIEW realtime system, but I guess it is not a commercial viable option, since at the time you calculate the runtime license for the NI software stack into it, there is no real benefit to NI hardware left and you still are likely to experience troubles from incompatibilities, as NI can and does make changes to that software stack all the time, and only if you know the complete specification of all APIs can you build a system that is fairly robust to survive such modifications.