NI announces LabVIEW 2018

NI has announced the release of LabVIEW 2018. The company says that engineers can further increase their speed of innovation with LabVIEW 2018 by taking advantage of new tools that simplify system integration and grant more control through hardware accessibility.

Applications that impact our daily lives are increasing in complexity due to the rapid innovation brought on by industry trends such as 5G, the Industrial Internet of Things and autonomous vehicles. Consequently, the challenge of testing these devices to ensure reliability, quality and safety introduces new demands and test configurations, with decreased time and budget. Engineers need better tools to organise, develop and integrate systems so they can accomplish their goals within the acceptable boundaries.

Engineers can use LabVIEW 2018 to address many of these challenges. They can integrate more third-party IP from tools like Python to make the most of the strengths of each package or existing IP from their stakeholders. Test engineers can use new functionality in LabVIEW 2018 to strengthen code reliability by automating the building and execution of software through integration with open interface tools like Jenkins for continuous delivery. Capabilities like this empower test engineers to focus on system integration and development where they can offer unique differentiation, rather than get bogged down in the semantics of how to use software tools or move IP from one to another. For test engineers using FPGAs for high-performance processing, new deep learning functions and improved floating-point operations can reduce time to market.

“NI’s continued commitment to its software-centric platform accelerates my productivity so I can focus on the challenges that yield the highest ROIs,” said Chris Cilino, LabVIEW Framework Architect at Cirrus Logic. “LabVIEW continues to minimise the effort of adding tests and code modifications to our validation framework, delivering a consistent process to maintain our software and incorporate the re-use of valuable IP without rewrites.”

To meet demands like testing higher complexity DUTs and shorter time frames, engineers need tools tailored to their needs that they can efficiently use through their workflow, helping them to meet their exact application requirements. LabVIEW 2018 is the latest addition to NI’s software-centric platform that features products tailored to needs within distinct stages of their workflow.

With InstrumentStudio providing an interactive multi-instrument experience, TestStand test management software handling overall execution and reporting, and SystemLink managing assets and software deployments, this workflow improves the productivity of test and validation labs across many industries. Each piece of the workflow is also interoperable with third-party software to maximise code and IP re-use and draws on the LabVIEW Tools Network ecosystem of add-ons and tools for more application-specific requirements.

Engineers can access both LabVIEW 2018 and LabVIEW NXG with a single purchase of LabVIEW.