From the course: Learning LabVIEW

What is LabVIEW? - LabVIEW Tutorial

From the course: Learning LabVIEW

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What is LabVIEW?

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- [Instructor] Before we dive head first into writing LabVIEW programs, let's take a step back for some context on what LabVIEW is to understand how and why scientists and engineers use it. In one sentence, LabVIEW is systems engineering software designed for engineers to rapidly develop applications requiring test, measurement, or control. It's a software platform developed by National Instruments and it's been around since the mid 80s, so it's had a lot of time to grow and develop, both in terms of features and the user community surrounding it. To give you a few examples, where you might find LabVIEW in use, consider an electronics factory, that produces video game controllers. Before a controller leaves the assembly line it needs to undergo a series of tests to make sure everything works. The test station might have a power supply unit, a system that tests the buttons and control sticks, a device to make sure it vibrates properly, and an RF tester, to verify the wireless communications. Rather than having a technician manually run through all of those tests, the factory can develop a LabVIEW application that interfaces with all of those individual systems, to automate and choreographic test routines, analyze the results, and determine if the device passes. To give another example application, a large industrial facility, like a power plant, has hundreds, or thousands of sensors measuring the temperatures, pressures, vibrations, voltages, and other phenomena throughout its many systems. The plant operators might use LabVIEW to monitor the data from all of those different instruments, warn them if something is abnormal, and then respond with control measures. And for one last example, where most people encounter LabVIEW for the first time, students and researchers in university labs use LabVIEW to acquire and analyze data from the equipment in their experimental set-ups. Now could we write programs in other common languages, like Python, or C++, to perform all of those different applications? Absolutely, and people certainly do. When deciding which programming environment to use for a project, there are two main reasons that people typically choose LabVIEW. The first is that it includes extensive support to integrate with hardware. LabVIEW is designed to work with everything from bench top instruments, to PC-based acquisition boards, software-defined radios, FPGA-based embedded systems, and even Arduino micro controller boards. The company that makes LabVIEW, National Instruments, also makes a wide range of test and measurement equipment. Naturally, their hardware integrates exceptionally well with LabVIEW, but LabVIEW is designed to work easily with hardware from other vendors too, using common interfaces. The other unique advantage that LabVIEW provides is a graphical approach to programming. The code we write in LabVIEW resembles a flowchart, like something you might sketch out on a whiteboard when planning the application. That allows engineers to write code the way they think, and more easily visualize how the application works. LabVIEW is a powerful tool, that can do way more than we'll cover in this course. That said, I have seen some LabVIEW enthusiasts get a bit over excited and try to prove that LabVIEW can do everything, by using it for applications that it's not well-suited for. You should think of LabVIEW, along with other languages and programming environments, as a collection of tools in your toolbox. Each has their advantages and disadvantages for different types of jobs. Where lab view really shines is in applications that involve interfacing with hardware to acquire data, analyze that data, and then do something with the result. Perhaps present it on a web-based dashboard, generate a report, or perform some sort of response action. From my own experience as an engineer, I've found that when I need to measure a signal, and do some processing on it, I could build a program to get up and running faster with LabVIEW than any other tool.

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