Inside NIWeek
August 18, 2005
ArchiveRead previous editions of Inside NIWeek Thursday Morning Keynote Preview
"The Scalable Enterprise - The Future Innovation of Technology" Mr. Jeff Clarke, Product Group senior vice president for Dell Computer Corporation, is the keynote speaker for the final day of NIWeek. Mr. Clarke, who joined Dell as a quality engineer when the company was less than three years old, has served in a variety of engineering and management roles over the past 18 years, including moving into product development in 1989 and later acting as director of desktop development in 1995. In 1997, he was responsible for launching Dell's Precision workstation product line that attained a No. 1 worldwide market share position. In his work with the Dell Product Group, Mr. Clarke is responsible for strategic technology direction as well as the worldwide development, marketing, quality, and delivery into manufacturing of all Dell workstations, servers, and networking and storage systems. Mr. Clarke will speak on the scalable enterprise that brings users the performance, reliability, and manageability needed for almost any computing environment. It also offers a lower total cost and better return on investment than proprietary solutions combined with the flexibility and simplicity of a standards-based approach that gives users more choices for their applications. Wednesday's Keynote Recap - NI CEO Previews Future of Virtual InstrumentationThe second day of NIWeek 2005 opened with a visionary outline of the future of virtual instrumentation by NI President, CEO, and Cofounder Dr. James Truchard. Truchard, addressing the record crowd of engineers and scientists, welcomed the attendees, shared his historical perspective on the history of virtual instrumentation, and offered evidence to its future path of innovation and technology. Truchard discussed virtual instrumentation's evolution from mainstream test applications to industrial control and, more recently, as a powerful system design tool for embedded design applications through National Instruments LabVIEW software. "With virtual instrumentation, engineers and scientists now can integrate measurements from the front end of the research phase through simulation, testing, and manufacturing," Truchard said. "Virtual instrumentation has crossed into the mainstream as a standard for building test and measurement systems. We are excited to take the next step with a graphical system design approach to do for embedded design what the PC did for the desktop." Following Truchard's address, NI Director of Software Marketing John Pasquarette hosted another set of demos complementing the more than a dozen exciting test and control examples from Tuesday morning's keynote. Wednesday's demos focused on ways engineers and scientists can improve the design process, including adding value to the design tools they are already using. For example, NI and Analog Devices engineers introduced a new FREE plug-in that helps users integrate the Analog Devices' analog-to-digital converter (ADC) modeling engine, ADIsimADC, into easy-to-use NI SignalExpress interactive measurement software, simplifying the parts-selection process. To obtain more information about ADIsimADC, visit www.analog.com/ADIsimADC. Other keynote demos are highlighted below. The keynote concluded with an address by Jeff Kodosky, known as "the father of LabVIEW," who offered the audience a glimpse into the future of graphical programming, including new ideas for leveraging wireless technology for LabVIEW and the applications that stretch beyond the original vision he had for distributed LabVIEW. "As we continued to add targets on our 'LabVIEW Everywhere' chart, we naturally started playing with smaller devices. In fact, we have built a number of small, experimental wireless devices that are programmable using LabVIEW. This is opening up a whole new array of applications," Kodosky said. "We are continuing to advance the state of the art in graphical programming while still preserving the core integrity and value of the fundamental concepts that have been in LabVIEW since the very beginning." Wednesday Keynote Demo HighlightsWednesday's demos:
Watch all the NI keynotes online. LabVIEW Coding Challenge WinnerJim Kring, the founder of OpenG.org, a LabVIEW open source development community, won the title of NIWeek Coding Challenge Champion. Kring won a Dell PDA and a copy of the LabVIEW PDA Module. Do not miss the next coding challenge at NIWeek 2006. Word on the Street: What emerging technology featured at NIWeek fascinates you most?
"For my applications with model-free adaptive loops, I think the new LabVIEW features are interesting, such as the ability to manage large projects. Our projects have more than 3,200 VIs."
"The RF and Wireless session was cool. I'm a student studying wireless communication, so I plan to focus on the wireless summit. I'm also a paper contest semifinalist, so I'm looking forward to the luncheon."
"I find PXI Express specifications and the emphasis on DSP interesting."
"CompactRIO. It is powerful with FPGAs and hardware and software working together."
"From being here for just this morning, I liked the accelerometer session. I'm learning more about DC generators to apply toward my senior design project on developing a system to monitor a race car as it goes around a racetrack." RoboLab Teams and Winners
ROBOLOAB Challenge Champion 2005: Purple Haze
Team 1: Digital Fusion
Team 2: E-Heat
Team 3: Glass Half Full
Team 4: The LASM Masters
Team 5: Roger's Red Army
Team 6: Summitt
Team 7: Pitt State Gorillas
Team 8: Killing Time
Team 9: Collins
Team 10: Texas-NC Unlimited
Team 11: Robo Hobos
Team 12: Purple Haze
Team 13: The UT MADIabbers
Team 14: LEGO-loco
Team 15: Leeroy Jenkins
Team 16: Robo Goddesses and the Cabana Boy
Team 17: Robo-Challenged
Team 18: Inoveris
Team 19: Pieced Together
Team 20: NGC View Virtual Instrumentation Applications Paper Contest Awards
Overall Winner:
Finalists
Finalist: "Automated Testing of Microshutters for the James Webb Space Telescope"
Category: Automotive
Finalist: "NI Compact Vision System Helps Achieve Six-Sigma Repeatability Standards in Inspection of Automobile Spark Plugs"
Winner: "NI PXI Architecture Unites Flexibility and Real-Time Performance in Networked Autocomponent Test Systems"
Category: Biotechnology/Life Sciences
Finalist: "VI Engineering Develops a Distributed Oven Process Controller for the Processing of Medical Device Controller"
Winner: "Creating a Magnetic Imaging System for Diagnosing Infant Brain Activity Based on NI PXI and LabVIEW"
Category: Communications/Signal Processing
Finalist: "Optimal Pilot-to-Data Power Ratio Simulator for MIMO-OFDM using NI LabVIEW 7.1"
Winner: "Resolving ZigBee-IEEE 802.15.4 PHY Layer Test Challenges Using a WPAN Test Suite Based on NI LabVIEW and RF PXI Instruments"
Cateogry: Control
Finalist: "Vacuum Chamber Controlling and Monitoring"
Winner: "Virtual Camshaft for Solid State Hydraulic Pump"
Category: Manufacturing Functional Test
Finalist: "Structural Health Monitoring System for Cable-Stayed Bridge"
Winner: "Automated Testing of Cell Phone LCD Assembly"
Category: R&D/Lab Automation
Finalist: "High-Channel-Count, PC-Based Test Systems for Compressor Testing"
Winner: "Underwater Crawler Control and Data Acquisition" Contact a Customer Service Representative at: (888) 564-9335 |
