What boards other than cRIO can run LabVIEW RealTime?

[JHugh]

I have a project where I want to program in LabVIEW, I would like my code to be run in Real Time, I would like the board to be a Linux-based operating system, and I would like the board to support serial and Ethernet communication. Unfortunately, due to external constraints, I am not allowed to use any NI hardware, so I cannot simply use a cRIO.

Are there any outside hardware vendors that support my requirements (LabVIEW, Real Time, Linux OS, Serial, and Ethernet add-on/ports)?

Thanks.

[jwscs]

this link might have the information you seek

http://www.ni.com/tutorial/2733/en/

http://www.ni.com/product-documentation/8239/en/

[Bob_Schor]

Drat, jwscs beat me to it!  I was going to say "Dell, HP, Lenovo", i.e. any PC capable of running Linux.  So "What jwscs said" ...

Bob Schor

[natasftw]

What jwscs said and what you said aren't the same, though.

It really comes down to whether or not the OP requires the LabVIEW RT Module or just similar processing.  If they require LVRT, the PC has to meet the limitations posted in jwscs's links.  That's not ANY PC capable of running Linux.  And in fact, it would be running Phar Laps instead of Linux.  It may not be a suitable solution for the OP due to it not being Linux.

If we make non-NI hardware running Linux a requirement, then we get into a new mess.  What does the OP need in terms of deterministic behavior?  Is that provided by any of the Linux OSs supported by LabVIEW?

What's driving your restriction?  Is it a cost based thing?  How much of a processor do you require?  What kind of I/O?

[jwscs]

thx for the addition, i just assumed they would use the same os as is on (my/) the crio and thats a linux with a little gnu on it.

the pharlab mentioning is very much obfuscated in the text 😞

but the links were just a short google to get the ball rolling anyways

[altenbach]

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@JHugh wrote:

I have a project where I want to program in LabVIEW, I would like my code to be run in Real Time, I would like the board to be a Linux-based operating system, and I would like the board to support serial and Ethernet communication. Unfortunately, due to external constraints, I am not allowed to use any NI hardware, so I cannot simply use a cRIO.

Are there any outside hardware vendors that support my requirements (LabVIEW, Real Time, Linux OS, Serial, and Ethernet add-on/ports)?

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Is this for commercial or personal use?

You can deploy LabVIEW code to run on e.g. raspberry pi, beaglebone, etc. (details). These boards seem to fit your description to some extent, but I am not familiar enough to give further advice.

[JHugh]

Thank you for your responses.

I am going to use this board for commercial use. It needs to have an Ethernet port capable of both IPv4 and IPv6 (I programmed a library for Linux in C) communication. It also needs to have at least three serial ports for digital I/O. It also needs several digital I/O ports, with a plus if I can easily add more if the project needs it.

Basically, it needs to have similar hardware specs to a cRIO 9064 (I was using this to test), but it cannot be an NI product. My client is fine using NI software i.e. LabVIEW, but not the hardware.

[rolfk]

If you want to be able to work like with a cRIO where you program in LabVIEW and deploy the code directly to the Realtime system, then I'm afraid the answer is really that there is no non-NI solution for this. Even if it is technically possible, which it would be but with a lot of effort to reverse engineer quite a bit of stuff and keep reverse engineering this with every new LabVIEW version out there, there is a legal aspect that is simply making this a non-solution. In order to run the LabVIEW Realtime engine on a hardware target you do need a license for that from NI. When buying an NI hardware target that license is inherently included with the target but when you want to do this on another hardware you or the hardware manufacturer would need to get a license from NI.

I'm not aware of anyone having done such a deal with NI, although it doesn't mean that it might not have happened for a large key customer of NI for some in-house project. But unless you can come to NI with a project that gives them some commercial incentive to make such a deal with you, it's basically not going to happen, and my estimates for something like that is that you need to be a customer that gives them yearly multi-million dollar sales and a situation where their hardware doesn't work for specific technical reason, not some political reason. Also it's unlikely they will set their lawyers at work for such a deal for a few dozen runtime licenses.

If it is just about using any embedded board running Linux with an application written in a different language than LabVIEW, and communicating with that board through TCP/IP or similar with a LabVIEW host application then it's not really difficult. There are several out there which support some realtime operation in one way or the other, but that is hardly a topic to discuss here.

[JHugh]

Sorry, I think I didn't explain myself very clearly. By commercial, I meant not for personal hobby use. Instead, this is for a project internal to our company. We would not be selling the hardware or software for any commercial gain or sharing the hardware/software outside of our company. The hardware/software will be used for a subsystem in our company and no where else.

[rolfk]

While NI might never learn that you did use a Raspi for such a solution, it is strictly speaking immediately very commercial as soon as you do it outside your home. Basically even for in-house use in your company you are going to be not only skating on very thin ice but be frankly speaking fully illegal when using the Raspi or Beaglebone board with the Linx interface software for anything but playing around in your educational company time, if you have that. If it helps your company to improve production or something else that is directly or indirectly coupled to making your products or services it is commercial. No need for the actual solution to be sold to other people.

This could be debatable if your company is a charity organization but I doubt that is the case here.