Onboard RTOS puts card in charge of testing

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jul 8, 2002

The new MAX6pci data acquisition card can be configured with one or more MAX-PC CPU modules to handle time- or safety-critical tasks on a test rig.

Microsoft Windows has revolutionised the way that engineers can perform measurements, analyse the data and produce reports.

However, it is not without limitations when attempting to perform measurement and control tasks that require high-speed calculations or a predictable response to monitored events.

Often for these applications, engineers have resorted to using real-time operating systems like QNX or pSOS, but these have additional licence costs and are not easily compatible with other measurement hardware.

An alternative strategy is to use the new MAX6pci data acquisition card from Strategic Test.

This three-quarter-length PCI carrier board can be configured with one or more MAX-PC CPU modules that can handle the time- or safety-critical tasks on the test rig while the other tasks like producing the operator displays and data strorage can be managed by the Microsoft Windows program.

Each MAX-PC module contains a free-licence multitasking RTOS called OsX that is embedded in the on-module Flash memory and allows up to 1024 tasks to be configured.

User-defined tasks are programmed in C and may be created for limit/alarm detection, application specific trigger functions, two or three term control loops and online calculations like FFTs for vibration measurements.

(Prewritten libraries for FFT calculations and PID control are supplied).

The MAX6pci card can be configured with up to six MAX-PC, MAX data acquisition or MAX communications modules, such that a single MAX6pci card can support up to 240 digital I/O channels, 120 analogue channels or a mixture of I/O and serial interfaces combined with CPU modules.

There are over 40 different MAX modules to choose from including modules with optoisolation, input voltage ranges to 100V or 0 to 20mA, RS232/485/422 interfaces and relay outputs.

Software drivers are supplied for the LabView, DasyLab and Argus data acquisition programs, together with drivers for Microsoft Visual Basic and C, Borland Delphi and C.