NI launch targets environmental monitoring

Sept. 17, 2008 – National Instruments has launched an instrument driver to enable users of its LabVIEW graphical system design platform to interface with environmental monitoring sensors that communicate via SDI-12 - a serial-based communication protocol optimised for battery-powered intelligent sensors.

According to the company, the NI LabVIEW SDI-12 Application Programming Interface (API) allows software, researchers, engineers and scientists to readily acquire measurements such as turbidity, dissolved oxygen, tank level, soil pH, conductivity and other critical environmental sensor measurements.

The SDI-12 protocol, it said, makes it possible to communicate with a wide variety of sensors and recorders that are most commonly used in environmental data acquisition applications such as climate change tracking, water quality and testing, ecological research, soil monitoring, agriculture and weather analysis.

“National Instruments makes green engineering possible by providing measurement and automation hardware and software to measure and understand real-world data and then to correct or fix the problem,” said John Hanks, vice president of data acquisition and control at National Instruments. The new software, he added, enables engineers to shorten their development time when designing data-logging and data acquisition applications that use common sensors from leading environmental companies.”

The LabVIEW SDI-12 API, combined with an RS232 to SDI-12 converter and any computer or NI programmable automation controller that includes a serial port, can be used to make environmental measurements in a laboratory setting or deploy stand-alone systems into remote locations. The product can be downloaded for free from the NI Instrument Driver Network at www.ni.com/idnet.