TDR using Oscilloscope

[Markb97]

Hi all,

First post here, I am a student studying electrical and electronics. I have chosen to make a Time Domain Reflectometer as my final year self directed project. I have little experience in LabVIEW and was wondering could I use an Oscilloscope as a means of capturing the reflections from a cable and then using that captured data in LabVIEW. 

I have a Rigol 1054 oscilloscope readily available that is capable of 1Gs/s and I am unsure if a usb connection between the pc and  oscilloscope would sufficient or would it limit the amount of samples I can gather per second?

Sorry for the long winded post, I would be very greatful for any replies that could point me in the right direction.

Thank you.

[cbutcher]

Hi Mark,

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@Markb97 wrote:

I have little experience in LabVIEW and was wondering could I use an Oscilloscope as a means of capturing the reflections from a cable and then using that captured data in LabVIEW. 

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Yes - you can do this. Or at least, it can be done 🙂 There appears to be a driver here: RIGOL DS1000 Series Oscilloscope that might help you out. It looks as though it was released in 2012, and it doesn't explicitly list your model, so there's a chance that it will be not using modern best practices, or might be missing a few commands specific to your device, but it might get you started with transferring data from your oscilloscope.

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@Markb97 wrote:

capable of 1Gs/s and I am unsure if a usb connection between the pc and  oscilloscope would sufficient or would it limit the amount of samples I can gather per second?

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Acquiring continuously and without limit at 1Gs/s might take something like 8GB/s transfer speeds. So yeah, you probably can't do that over USB (even 3.1).

On the other hand, capturing sections of data at that acquisition rate and then transferring them is very possible (because probably (I didn't check, but it's true for every oscilloscope I've used that has a digital interface and I'm not sure how else it could work) you have in-built memory that will buffer your data until you transfer it).

So if you only need brief snapshots, you can definitely go ahead. If you want continuous acquisition, you might need to reduce your bandwidth.