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So there we saw how graphical system design is helping to
keep up with the challenge of validating these software
based embedded systems.
Now we want to talk about how that same platform is used to
actually design, prototype, and deploy embedded systems
themselves.
So I want to bring up Jamie Smith from our marketing team
to talk about that and to show and introduce us to some
pretty exciting embedded designers as well.
Welcome Jamie.
Thank you Eric.
Graphical system design has been used to solve some of the
most challenging measurement and control applications from
controlling the CERN Hadron Collider, to optical coherence
tomography, to updating the electrical grid.
For nearly 10 years, scientists and engineers have
been designing embedded control measurement systems
based around the LabView RIO architecture, which includes a
processor, an FPGA, an application specific IO, all
programmed in a single software environment, LabView.
Yeah, Jamie.
You and I are talking about how exciting some of these
applications are and how motivating it is for us to see
what many of you are doing with our
embedded systems platform.
It's really incredible what small teams are accomplishing
based on our tools.
That's right, and I agree.
And recently, Wilson Research prepared a study of the
embedded marketplace, and in that research, they compared
what teams were doing with LabView system design software
to teams using other tools.
And what they found is, teams using LabView complete their
applications in less than half the time of
teams using other tools.
Roughly six months for teams choosing LabView, and teams
using other tools, a little bit over a year.
And because those teams are using an integrated, off the
shelf hardware platform, the teams are 60% smaller than
teams using other tools when designing embedded systems.
Yeah, it's nice to have some numbers to go with all the
anecdotes we have.
Let's talk about some specific areas of innovation that are
using our platform.
Some of the most exciting areas of innovation around a
graphical system design are happening in the areas of
energy, life sciences, and RF communications.
Let's start with energy.
Energy's on the verge of major technology revolution as it
moves from analog based control to
digital based control.
By using power transistors and FPGA based control logic,
along with software, we'll be able to better modify, move,
and store energy on the grid.
And NI is committed to providing next generations
tests and design tools for this digital energy
revolution.
And today, I'm very pleased to announce the NI single board
RIO general purpose inverter controller, the GPIC, which
you see here attached to the methode power stack, an off
the shelf, ready to run power inverter.
The GPIC provides a specific I/O needed for high volume,
commercial power electronics applications.
To learn more about the GPIC and the digital power
revolution, I'd like to bring out Kyle Clark, senior systems
engineering manager from Dynapower Company.
Kyle.
Thanks Jamie.
Welcome Kyle.
Thanks guys.
It's great to be here at NI week.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about Dynapower?
Sure.
Dynapower's been around for 50 years.
We produce high power, high voltage, high current power
systems for electrochemical, mining, and high energy
physics applications.
We're known in the industry for taking on the most
advanced and challenging power conversion applications.
And recently, we've developed a line of power conversion
equipment for the grid-tied energy storage market.
What's the key technology at the heart
of these power systems?
Well, in all digital energy applications, we use high
power transistors to chop the electrical current up into
pulses to convert between AC and DC, DC and
AC, and DC to DC.
The energy efficiency requirements of these systems
continues to increase.
The requirements from our customers continue to
increase, and the price points continue to go down.
FPGAs in particular with embedded DSPs inside the
fabric of the devices enable us to run multiple parallel
control loops and remotely deploy and reconfigure the
hardware of the controls after the systems have been deployed
to the grid.
I see, Kyle, you've got one of your inverters here.
It's a pretty impressive piece of power electronics.
Let's talk about specific application that benefits from
the FPGA based approach you mention.
In this application, a company called Axion Power
International came to us with an activated
carbon battery product.
And it has many benefits, including a high rate of
charge and discharge capability, long cycle life,
and a deep depth of discharge capability.
But in order to fully realize all these benefits including
the deep depth of discharge, we had to develop a custom
piece of power electronics to realize these.
This system, it has many applications.
The purpose of the system is to take energy excess off the
grid when there's extra, and push energy back on to the
grid when there's a need.
It does this by providing real and reactive
power at the AC port.
There's a common DC link between multiple DC to DC
converters that acutely manage the charge and discharge of
their respective batteries.
The key to this design was the ability for our power
engineers to directly program their product without a
software engineer in the middle.
All right, you heard me talk about the Wilson research
study of the embedded markets, some of the productivity gains
teams were seeing.
Did your team see similar gains?
Yeah, indeed we did.
We were very pleased.
Typically in a system of this type, we would have quoted
about a year and a half delivery time for a prototype.
In this particular product, we took the PPO in April, and we
quoted 24 weeks, which enabled our customer to get on the
grid when they needed to.
Great, that's really impressive.
So you were able to complete the system in a third of the
time that it would have with traditional tools.
That's really impressive.
So, looking into the future, do you plan to use a GPIC and
LabView system design software on future systems?
Yeah, we plan to build from this.
Our next step is going to include putting embedded
system power analysis on the inverters, the ability to
autonomously operate the inverters, and to provide
remote data aggregation for offsite
optimization and control.
In fact, I've got a stack of RFPs on my desk right now that
we previously would have had to pass on had we not had
these tools at our disposal.
Well Kyle, we don't want to keep you from a stack of RFPs.
You better get to work.
Thank you.
Thanks for sharing.
Appreciate it.