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INTRODUCTION
LabVIEW (Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering
Workbench) is a graphical programming language which
was developed in 1986 by National Instruments.[1]
LabVIEW has become a vital tool for engineers and
scientists in research throughout academia, industry, and
government labs. Although many reference books [2] exist
to help one learn to program using LabVIEW, most of these
require a significant investment of time. At the University
of San Diego (USD), we wanted to provide an introduction
to LabVIEW for all electrical engineering majors without
adding additional classes or laboratories to the curriculum.
During a summer research experience, two electrical
engineering juniors at USD wrote a tutorial on LabVIEW
and designed a one-hour exercise to introduce students to
LabVIEW.
The exercise that was chosen examined the behavior of
simple RC filters.[3] Students had previously performed this
experiment in their sophomore circuits class.
FIGURE 1
LabVIEW FRONT PANEL OF AMPLITUDE FREQUENCY RESPONSE PROGRAM
1
Melanie L. Higa, University of San Diego, Department of Engineering, 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110 mhiga@sandiego.edu
2
Dalia M. Tawy, University of San Diego, Department of Engineering, 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110 dtawy@sandiego.edu
3
Susan M. Lord, University of San Diego, Department of Engineering, 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110 slord@sandiego.edu
Session T1D
In this exercise, frequency is incremented on the
function generator by one student while another student
records the frequency and the corresponding output voltage
and input voltage readings from the oscilloscope into an
Excel spreadsheet.
Then the students calculate the magnitude of the voltage
gain using equation (1).
Gain = A = (Vo / Vin )
(1)
LABORATORY EXERCISE
In order for students to become acquainted with LabVIEW,
we decided that they would need a brief tutorial. Of the
LabVIEW reference books considered, those by Beyon [1]
and Bishop [6] proved to be the most useful in developing
this.
One of the authors (MLH) wrote a 5 page
Introduction to LabVIEW which summarized the main
features that students would need to know to make some
simple modifications to an existing program. Students were
given this tutorial to read before performing this laboratory
exercise. Copies of the tutorial as well as the LabVIEW
code are available from one of the authors (SML).
The equipment used consisted of a Wavetek 148
Function Generator, an HP 54600A Oscilloscope with GPIB
interface, an HP 34401A Digital Multimeter, and a personal
computer with LabVIEW 6i. A picture of the complete setup is shown in Figure 2. The two students who designed the
exercise began the summer with no experience in LabVIEW.
They used various reference books and were able to write a
program to interface to the oscilloscope [7], obtain Vo and
Vin, calculate gain, generate a frequency response graph in
real time, and allow for error detection. Since the function
generators available at USD did not have GPIB capability,
the frequency had to be swept manually. The two students
who worked on the program gained considerable experience
with LabVIEW over the course of the summer. The
experience was beneficial in several ways.
LabVIEW is a completely new to me, so just being able
to learn enough about it to write a functional program
was a huge challenge for me. I also learned to be
resourceful. When things didn't work out with the
program, and I couldn't figure it out on my own, I had to
get on the phone and find someone who could help. It
was really neat to see the design process, which I
learned about freshman year, implemented in a real life
project that would be tested by my peers and hopefully
other classes that may follow.
FIGURE 2
0-7803-7444-4/02/$17.00 2002 IEEE COMPLETE SET -UP OF LABVIEW EXERCISE November 6 - 9, 2002, Boston, MA
32 nd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
T1D-14
Session T1D
The laboratory exercise was designed to be performed
in one hour by students in groups of two. The students
examine the behavior of a simple high-pass RC filter whose
schematic circuit diagram is shown in Figure 3.
OUTPUT
0.01uF
V2
INPUT
V1
15kOhm
FIGURE 3
HIGH - PASS RC FILTER USED IN LABVI EW EXERCISE
(2)
FIGURE 4
CUT OFF FREQUENCY PROGRAM. LEFT SIDE SHOWS THE
FRONT PANEL (USER INTERFACE) AND RIGHT SIDE SHOWS THE
DIAGRAM (LabVIEW CODE)
Session T1D
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NSF Career Grant ECS-9796220 provided partial support for
this work. The authors gratefully acknowledge Brandon
Decker, Derek Maxwell, Michael Spencer, Patrick Weed for
help in testing the exericse as well as the cooperation and
suggestions of the students in Engr 130 at USD in Fall 2001.
We appreciate the loan of two GPIB boards by National
Instruments for the week that the exercise was performed in
Fall 2001. Finally, the assistance of National Instruments
Representative Jorge Noguera with the real time plotting and
error detection is gratefully acknowledged.
REFERENCES
[1] Beyon, J. Y., LabVIEW Programming, Data Acquisition and Analysis,
Prentice Hall PTR (Upper Saddle River, NJ), 2001.
[2] For example, Wells, L.K. and T. Jeffrey, LabVIEW for Everyone:
Graphical Programming Made Even Easier, Prentice Hall PTR,
(Upper Saddle River, NJ), 1996.
Jamal, J. and H. Pichlik, LabVIEW Applications and Solution, Prentice
Hall, (Upper Saddle River NJ), 1999.
[3] Introduction to RC filter Lab for Engr 60 at USD by one of the
authors (SML) based on a lab by Thomas F. Schubert, Jr.
[4] Beams, D. M., Project TUNA The Development a LabVIEW
Virtual Instrument as a Class Project in a Junior-Level Electronic
Course Session 22259, Proceedings of the 2000 ASEE Annual
Conference, St. Louis, MO, June 2000.
[5] M.G. Guvench, S. Gile and S. Qazi, "Automated Measurement of
Frequency Response of Electrical Networks Filters and Amplifiers",
Session 1359, Proceedings of the 2001 ASEE Annual Conference,
Albuquerque, NM, June 2001.
[6] Bishop R. H., LabVIEW Student Edition 6i, Prentice Hall, (Upper
Saddle River, NJ), 2001.
[7] Instead of rewriting a program that could communicate with the
oscilloscope, we based our LabVIEW program on one written by USD
student Michael Hawkins in Summer 1998.
SUMMARY
Two electrical engineering juniors wrote a tutorial and onehour exercise to introduce their classmates to LabVIEW
during a summer research experience at USD. The exercise
focused on obtaining the amplitude frequency response of a
simple RC filter using an oscilloscope and function
generator. Twenty-one juniors successfully performed the
exercise in Fall 2001. There was a mix of feelings from the
students reports. Some of the students found LabVIEW
very handy while others were overwhelmed by the program
they were given. Overall, students were able to learn a few
programming techniques in LabVIEW, were impressed with
its capabilities, and gained an appreciation for LabVIEW as
a data acquisition tool.