Research and Analysis

Engineers and scientists commonly use data acquisition hardware and software to research unknown characteristics through measurement and analysis. Applications range from modeling the behaviors of scientific phenomena to characterizing the properties of new product designs. The following case studies illustrate the productivity, accuracy, and flexibility provided by NI data acquisition (DAQ) hardware and LabVIEW software for research and analysis.

Capturing Groundbreaking Tornado Phenomena

Building a probe that uses NI CompactDAQ, NI LabVIEW, NI DIAdem, and an NI 3110 industrial controller to capture, process, and display measurements including sound, temperature, air pressure, wind speed, and wind direction from the bottom two meters of a tornado.

“The flexibility of NI CompactDAQ and LabVIEW gave us the ability to customize our measurement setup so we could focus on what we were measuring, not how we were going to measure it.” – Tim Samaras, TWISTEX

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Wireless Data Acquisition for a Bridge Collapse Test

Measuring the weight of the road base applied to the bridge by attaching a load cell to the truck-mounted crane load line above the lift bucket and connecting a Wi-Fi DAQ module to easily read and record the load data from across the work site.

“The wireless system provided the measurement accuracy needed to calculate the collapse load quickly while eliminating wires that would have caused safety issues.” – Jeremiah Fasl, The University of Texas at Austin

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Acquiring and Analyzing the Bioacoustic Communication of Marine Mammals

Developing a reliable data acquisition system capable of collecting and analyzing the ultrasonic signals produced by wild killer whales.

“Historically, it has been challenging to find reliable equipment for use in these types of environments; however, we developed a system based on LabVIEW software and NI data acquisition hardware that met all of our criteria.” – Magnus Wahlberg, Fjord & Bælt

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