Noob to LabVIEW interface, Arduino controls for sensor/monitoring

[EngIn]

Hello all,

I'm a mechanical engineering student with very little exposure to LabVIEW. I'm in my senior year and we have a project from a cell tower company to design and control the chemistry of an electrolyte in a "revolutionary" rechargeable zinc-air battery.

I covinced my team to use the LabVIEW to program Arduino (still learning that as well). Before we jump into the process I'd like to confirm that what we are trying to do is possible. 

We are planning to use a YSI sonde to measure chemistry parameters of the electrolyte. According to the article below, I can use LabVIEW to connect to the sonde. However, what we really want is for the sonde to communicate with the arduino controller. The arduino controller should interpret the reading from the sonde, and perform the necessary tasks to correct the chemistry.

Is this possible? Are there any type of complications we might face? We are new to this,  and because of the time contraints, we are trying to climb the learning curve as fast as possible. I appreciate any help. Keep in mind I am a noob and won't uderstand most jargon, so I apologize for anything that is vague or ucertain inn my post. Below is a link to an option we might use for a sonde.

http://www.ysi.com/productsdetail.php?6920-V2-3

[User002]

Personally I think the arduino adds extra complexity to the task in your case.

If you anyway intend on using LabVIEW for the control loop, then I would presume it is better to purchase for example an USB or ethernet DAQ, perhaps go so far as having an ethernet sbRIO. Though, make sure you have a top-notch USB controller on your computer and not some el'cheapo chip. 

The best use-case for the arduino is simpler embedded control and monitoring. If you start pushing the envelope with lots of code and functionality, the AVR processor quickly becomes a bottleneck.

https://www.ni.com/en-us/support/model.usb-6008.html

Or,

https://www.ni.com/en-us/support/model.sbrio-9636.html

If you are on a shoestring budget, then arduino is perhaps the right choise.

On a side note, there are some powerful ARM based eval boards. Though, programming the data aquistition, feedback control, logic and UI might take much longer time than a LabVIEW based approach with NI HW.

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MCIMX51EVKJ

Br,

/Roger

[EngIn]

Hello Roger,

Thanks for your response. I appreciate the heads up on not using arduino for the control loop. We aren't on a terrible budget, so the NI USB 6008 you reffered to will be fine. Of course, I will have to assure my supervisor that the extra cost will be for a good reason, so what else to say besides that someone on a forum suggested it to me?

I also have one more question. Are we in over our heads, as complete beginners trying to accomplish this? I'm not sure if you're familiar with MATLAB, but I started writing a template code for when we start using LabVIEW. It took me several hours to construct, and I feel that when the time comes to program on LabVIEW I will be clueless, as I've never worked on any GUI before. Any advice here would help. I feel if I have the option to pay a more experienced individual to do the actual programming part, I would do it. 

Thanks again for your help, and any more responses will also be appreciated.

Mohammed

[User002]

LabVIEW 2012 have several types of application templates at your disposal from the start screen.

It is very good for getting going with a good application structure.

As beginners you still have all the fun of learning data flow based programming.

Personally I have done Matlab, Simulink, C, C++, Java, Python, but I got this thing for G (Graphical programming).

For example the NI USB 6008 can sample up to 10kHz with the 8 AD's, it has 12 bit AD's, it has two 12 bit AO's and loads of DIO's.

Overall it is a "better" DAQ device than the arduino.

See for example my zigbee based arduino system with some advanced 16-bit DA's on a prototype board sending voltages to an USB DAQ.

So you don't think I am biased here. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8BogmpyovQ

A good starting point for NI's programming language is the student pages.

Br,

/Roger

[EngIn]

Roger,

Thanks for your input. We have purchased the USB 6008 and it's been workin great! My team and I are becoming a lot better at LabVIEW as well. 

BUT

There is one issue I've overlooked. Is there any way of having LabVIEW run multiple VI's at once? By dataflow logic it wouldn't seem so, but is there some type of LabVIEW trickery that would accomplish it?

PS. I didn't even know you can program in G! Paid attention in discrete mathematics class I see. 

- Mohammed Helal

[Dennis_Knutson]

Running VIs in parallel has been a feature from the beginning. The simplest way is to just put each subVI in its own while loop. You might want to look at some of the shipping examples or other tutorials.

[EngIn]

I see. I didn't think of it that way. What made me question it is that the VI's that may overlap are for pulse modulation (digital outputs) from different output lines. I thought that doing so would create a problem. Late at night I guess. Thanks for bringing me back to my senses!