Document Type: Tutorial

NI Supported: Yes
Publish Date: Feb 01, 2012

Advantages of Using LabVIEW in Academic Research

Overview

Scientists and researchers around the world have applied LabVIEW and National Instruments products successfully for research and development (R&D) in academia. This paper considers
some of the advantages of applying the National Instruments platform, including LabVIEW, to build virtual instrumentation and take an effective graphical system design approach that can
effectively leverage the opportunities and take on the challenges of modern academic research and development.

Table of Contents

1. Opportunities and Challenges of Modern Academic Research

2. Virtual Instrumentation
3. Graphical System Design in Academic Research
4. Benefits of Graphical System Design and LabVIEW for Research
5. Designing and Developing Large, Complex Scientific Instruments
6. LabVIEW for Experimental Research and Scientific Computing
7. Data Acquisition
8. Signal Processing and Analysis
9. Data Visualization
10. Connecting External Tools to LabVIEW
11. Benefits of Using LabVIEW in Scientific Research
12. Additional Resources

Opportunities and Challenges of Modern Academic Research

Academic research and development usually encompasses discovery, innovation, experimentation, and creation; however, in today’s highly competitive and global economy, it also involves
patents, licensing, technology transfer, and partnerships with industry. In other words, it is about creating “new knowledge” and building “new bridges” with industry while having a positive
impact on the community and society in general. Due to the convergence of technologies and science, multidisciplinary research is required. This means that hardware and software tools must
be adaptable to different disciplines. As technology evolves quickly, laboratories must be updated periodically as well as be able to extend the useful life of current and legacy equipment and
software. New research may require custom instruments and application programs (software) that are not readily available on the market to be built using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)
technologies.

Scientific research is also evolving. Traditionally, basic scientific principles have posed questions that can be investigated empirically (and experimentally), so that a scientific hypothesis can be
viable. The scientific method is commonly built around testable hypotheses for which models (conceptual and theoretical) are developed, and then tested through experiments (and tests).

Figure 1. A common approach to scientific research works to prove an initial hypothesis; models are developed and confirmed with experimental results.

This hypothesize, model, and experiment approach to scientific research complements a new method in which large data sets that are created from a variety of measurements coming from
sensors and data acquisition systems are modeled, analyzed, and mined to “discover” knowledge. In this new approach, models and patterns are identified in the data using analysis and data
mining techniques; the goal is to “find knowledge” and meaningful information in those large sets of data, leading to new scientific discovery and innovation. This process that starts with
measurements and ends with new designs is defined as “designing with measurements.”

Figure 2. With the “designing with measurements” approach to research, sensors and other sources of live signals provide the basis for new discoveries.

Virtual Instrumentation

Virtual instrumentation is the combination of user-defined software and modular hardware that implements custom systems (“virtual instruments”) with components for acquisition,
processing/analysis and presentation. Virtual instruments commonly leverage mainstream technologies, platforms, and standards such as the PC, Ethernet, GPIB, USB, IEEE 1394, PCI, PCI
Express and others. Virtual instrumentation combines such technology with an application-specific selection of modular hardware for signal I/O, instrument control, connectivity and other tasks.

Virtual instrumentation software is user defined and focused on the needs of the application. For instance, researchers can build custom virtual instruments that can apply real-time mathematics
for processing, analysis, and control involving online (live) and/or offline (from a file / database) signal I/O. Using the virtual instrumentation approach, applied mathematics is combined with real-
time measurements, which helps researchers reduce the time to discovery and, potentially, the time to market and/or time to commercialization of potential products and services that result from
research and development (R&D).

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