The Next Evolution of Instrumentation for Microwave Test. Jin Bains RF R&D Director National Instruments

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1 The Next Evolution of Instrumentation for Microwave Test Jin Bains RF R&D Director National Instruments

2 The Complexity of Testing Systems of Systems EISCAT_3D A European 3D Imaging Radar for Atmospheric and Geospace Research

3 RADAR Technologies: Cognitive Radar Joseph R. Guerci, Microwave Journal, Vol.54, No.1, January 2011

4 Evolution of Instrumentation Vacuum Tube Transistor (Integrated Circuit) Software General Radio Hewlett Packard National Instruments

5 The Virtual Instrumentation Approach The Software Is the Instrument

6 Future of RF System Design RF/Microwave Circuit Design Electromagnetic Simulation Link Budget Analysis System Simulation Real-Time Control FPGA Prototype Design Verification Product Verification Concept Research & Modeling Design & Simulation Validation & Verification Manufacturing Operations & Support Test Integration With Design/Analysis Test for Validation

7 Comparing Traditional and Virtual Instrumentation Architectures Traditional Instrumentation Virtual Instrumentation

8 Expanding Measurement Capabilities Accuracy (Bits) K 10K 100K 1M 10M 100M 1G 10G 100G Sampling Rate (S/s) Phase Matrix Products and Technology NI Products, 1995 NI Products, 2004 NI Products, 2011 Traditional Instruments

9 Parallel Architectures Drive Performance 5,000 5, TMACs FPGA Performance (GMACs) FPGAs 50 CPUs 50 CPU Performance (GFLOPs)

10 PXI: Hardware Platform Based on COTS Riding Moore s Law PCI Express Multicore Processors FPGAs Data Converters Enabling High-Performance Microwave Test Rugged, modular form factor High-speed data movement Timing and synchronization Optimization for parallel execution

11 Parallel Programming With NI LabVIEW Task Parallelism Data Parallelism Pipelining Multicore Processors FPGAs

12 DSP Design Module Value Enables an algorithm designer to specify an intuitive diagram that generates real-time DSP implementations on FPGAs:

13 Traditional RF Spectrum Analyzers Analog Architecture

14 Modern RF Measurement System Software for Wireless Standards ( a/b/g/n, GSM, EDGE, WCDMA, RFID, WiMAX, GPS, and so on) Modular Hardware Architecture Downconverter Digitizer FPGA+Processor

15 High-Accuracy Instruments NI PXIe to 14 GHz frequency range Phase noise -129 dbc/hz at 10 khz offset Average noise floor: GHz TOI dbm WCDMA ACLR: -80 dbc.33% 256 QAM EVM

16 Graphical System Design A Platform-Based Approach Test Monitor Embedded Control Cyber Physical PC-Based DAQ Modular Instruments NI CompactRIO Open Connectivity

17 Modular PXI Platform Based on COTS Riding Moore s Law PCI Express Multicore Processors FPGAs Data Converters PXI Controller Multicore Integrated MXI Chassis System monitoring PXI Backplane Bus technology Timing Synchronization System Services System-level assembly and test High availability and extended lifetime agreements Peripheral Slots PXI and PXI Express hybrid slots >1500 PXI modules from >70 vendors

18 Key Technologies Driving Radar Hardware Software Services RF vector signal analyzer (channels phasesynchronized) RF vector signal generator (channels phasesynchronized) IF digitizers and arbitrary waveform generators High-speed digital I/O High-speed data streaming Inline signal processing Collaborative software development environments Flexible user interface Test management software User-defined signal processing

19 NI Reconfigurable I/O (RIO) Technology Platform Application IP Signal Processing IP Control IP Third-Party IP LabVIEW LabVIEW Real-Time LabVIEW FPGA Middleware Driver APIs Device Drivers I/O Drivers Processor FPGA I/O I/O Custom I/O NI CompactRIO and NI Single-Board RIO PXI,PC RIO (R Series, NI FlexRIO) Value Value Ultrarugged Design Performance High Performance

20 Graphical System Design A Platform-Based Approach Test Monitor Embedded Control Cyber Physical Performance Cost Integration PC-Based DAQ Modular NI CompactRIO Open Connectivity Instruments Development productivity