Packed agenda, LabVIEW chat and some more new faces for the Midlands LabVIEW User Group!
19 June 2019 by Chris Woodhams
It was a bit of a soggy day for our Summer Midlands LabVIEW User Group but that didn't stop us from enjoying a packed agenda of LabVIEW presentations. We were hosted by Jaguar Land Rover at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon, a new venue for us and it attracted some more new faces from a little further afield which was great to see.
First up was Pier Marchisio who is an Automation Technical Lead at Jaguar Land Rover. He talked about JLR’s approach to testing their infotainment systems and gave great insight into how JLR manage their test requirements. They have to simulate many devices on the car to enable a complete test of the product. They use a number of different techniques from Hardware in the Loop (HIL) to Car in the Loop (CIL). As well as testing the systems that the infotainment system connects to, they also test the visual display using camera acquisition, teaching the camera what it should expect on each button pressed. A great start to the meeting with lots for everyone to think about!
Next was Sam Sharp from MediaMongrels whose presentation was focused on database integration with LabVIEW. Sam got everyone excited about databases, which is no mean feat! He covered a toolkit he is developing to support connection, Create, Read, Update and Delete (CRUD) functions and more complex querying. From the comments and feedback Sam got, the community is looking forward to the progression of the tools he is developing.
Sam will be delivering a refined version of this presentation at GDevCon so won't be publicly sharing the slides just yet, but is happy for you to contact him for a copy. Alternatively he is looking forward to seeing you in Birmingham when the weather will hopefully be a little kinder!
Up next was Ian Billinglsley from Computer Control Solutions who gave us a sneak peek of what is to come from his presentation at GDevCon, looks like it will be one not to miss! Ian's session was aimed at conducing research for his GDevCon presentation and this led to some interesting discssion on the group's experience of programming LabVIEW FPGA. It was great to hear how people compared the benefits of both DAQmx programming and FPGA programming. We also touched on one of the latest cRIOs that is compatible with both FPGA and DAQmx on a per module basis, best of both worlds!
Last but most certainly not least it was great to welcome the founder of the Quick Drop podcast, Jonathan Hobson who works for TBG Solutions. Jono gave some great insight into how he has utilised PPLs within their distribution process. He highlighted the huge benefits of setting up something like this in a distributed system and also covered some of the challenges he came across. PPLs give you a brilliant mechanism to update elements of you system without having to rebuild your application, instead you replace the PPL related to the updated part of the system. It was great to hear that the driver for this came from a GDevCon#1 presentation by Matthias Baudot.
Jonathan, Sam and Ian will all be presenting at GDevCon#2, so if you missed out on their presentations then join us, and them, on 21st and 22nd August in Birmingham.
And finally, a little advanced notice for the next User Group which is to be held on Wednesday 2nd October from 12.45pm. This time we will be hosted by CU Coventry at their new Mile End campus which is just outside Coventry city centre and easy to get to via train or car. CUC use LabVIEW within many of the modules on their degree courses and their staff and students are excited to have us join them. There will be plenty of spaces available but we will still need you to reserve your space so book here. As soon as we have the agenda together we will be back in touch.
If you're not already on the mailing list to receive up to date information about the Midlands LabVIEW User Group then do get in touch so you don't miss out on the latest news.
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