Using multiple PCI 5640R for MIMO

[cdschmit]

Hi,

I am considering using multiple PCI 5640R cards in the same case for a MIMO application.  My motivation for using the 5640R for this application was that I could start out by using the 5640R for data aquisition only (ignore the FPGA) and test algorithms in LabVIEW (non-real-time), then eventually migrate the code back to the FPGA for real-time.  I just have a few questions in advance:

1) Can multiple 5640R cards be easily synch'd?  I assume a common clock could be fed into the CLK IN port on each card.  Can that clock source come from one of the cards, or do I need a dedicated oscillator on the bench?

2) Am I right in assuming that the bandwidth bottleneck (when streaming sampled data) will be the PCI bus which must be shared between the cards?  Will the reduction be linear in the number of cards, or much worse due to overhead for continuous real-time acquisition?

3) Is there any forseeable problems in using the 5640R?  I'm surprised that I have not found more info on others using it for MIMO or synchronizing multiple cards.  I know there are other hardware options, but any that give me decent bandwidth (say 2-5 MHz per each of 6 channels) and the advantage of slowly migrating to the FPGA?

Chris

[Matt_A]

Hello Chris,

The NI PCI-5640R (IF-RIO) is one of our more advanced devices and requires a fair amount of experience with LabVIEW FPGA to be used most effectively. As such, it has it's own discussion forum online here. I would recommend that you post your question to that board as you are much more likely to get a qualified answer there. In general, you are more likely to find better, more thorough answers when you post to a forum specific to a product as opposed to the general LabVIEW forum. Hope you get some good advice there.

[cdschmit]

Matt,

I initiiated the post from the IF-RIO forum...didn't realize that it defaulted back to the regular LV forum.  I've reposted it now.

Thanks!