Guide to Choosing Test & Measurement Software

Test and measurement applications are unique and challenging to develop. They must interact with the real world, which presents complexities that developers in other application areas will never encounter. These applications must acquire data from multiple synchronized sources, analyze that data using specialist algorithms, run parallel processes, and then be deployed to remote systems. To meet these challenges, engineers need development software that delivers domain-specific solutions to each of these requirements while achieving project delivery deadlines.

Signal Acquisition

Every test and measurement application has the same goal: acquire data that confirms the correct product functionality. This process presents the first challenge: correctly connecting to multiple instruments and devices to acquire signals. In its simplest form, this process relies on instrument drivers that stream data over communication buses such as PCI, USB, or serial. Vendors typically provide these drivers, but without high-quality support for the development environment, automating instruments and measurements becomes difficult. Many applications also need to handle multiple channels and signal types, including conditioned analog I/O, digital signals, communication buses, and RF. These channels will have a time dependency between them—meaning that signal timing, triggering, and synchronization can become as important as the acquisition itself. In these situations, the software must have access to the entire system, not siloed to one instrument at a time.

Data Handling

After data is acquired, it must be processed and displayed in a way that an engineer can use it to derive product insight or influence an action. Data from different devices often enters an application at different rates, so it must be continuously processed and stored to maintain integrity.

This data also often needs to be shown to the user for real-time monitoring—a requirement that means that test and measurement applications usually require sperate actors or operations running in parallel, often with some dependency between them. These applications are difficult to build in environments designed for sequential or offline processing, so efficient development requires one optimized for parallel execution.

System Deployment and Management

Measurements are run as part of an automated sequence that is usually deployed to a target separate from the development machine. This machine could be a remote PC, the controller on a test rack, a real-time target, or even an embedded target like an FPGA. These deployments often include multiple stations and can be in remote or international locations. Software development does not end at deployment. Because test and measurement applications are often used for many years, automated measurement sequences must be updated, maintained, and refactored over time.

This requirement means that software must be architected in an editable, scalable, and remotely accessible/deployable way to minimize downtime and prevent mismatched configurations that could result in costly retests and escapes. Teams must also manage data collection and storage so that it is consistent and accessible across design, quality and production groups. Without careful management of system deployment and lifecycle considerations, organizations often face a significant operational burden.

Many software development tools and languages are available, and those with the broadest appeal often have the largest user bases. However, they are not well suited to the demands of test and measurement applications.

Languages like C and Python have different strengths—their ecosystem of open-source libraries, availability of talent and ecosystem of dev-ops tools make them appealing. But beyond the familiar syntax, they are not best suited to test and measurement applications. 

• Hardware drivers, analysis functions, user interface features, and deployment targets are insufficient or inaccessible, making progress slower and engineers less productive.

• Innovation tends to prioritize the largest groups of developers, which rarely includes test and measurement engineers. As a result, organizations cannot assume timely adoption of the latest technologies or security standards. New technology adoption often reflects the priorities of the loudest voices—leaving test as an afterthought rather than a primary use case.

• Test engineers using general-purpose tools can be isolated, as their development communities tend to focus on syntax, rather than the broader context of test and measurement application development with a holistic, contextual view. 

You need capable, reliable software focused on solving the challenges of test and measurement applications. Rather than spending time building your own augmentations to a general-purpose foundation, adopting a test-specific software toolchain can free up a lot of your time to instead focus on more valuable, product-focused tasks such as adding new capabilities and ensuring quality for your customers.

Purpose-built for test and measurement applications, NI software is a productive and comprehensive toolchain for test and measurement. Our developers have created a set of tools that accelerate your productivity as test engineer, provide flexibility to meet evolving requirements, and promote effective collaboration.

Work with Speed and Efficiency

NI software was designed with the specific needs of test engineers in mind. By choosing specialist software, it has been shown that engineers can be more than 50 percent more productive than using general-purpose tools as each task is performed more quickly and efficiently. Across a project, engineering teams can save thousands of hours, worth millions of dollars, by using tools optimized for test. NI tools deliver this speed and efficiency in many ways, including the following benefits:

• An integrated workflow—Test engineering projects consist of a workflow of tasks starting with requirements gathering and test planning, flowing through measurement development and coding, and ending with system deployment, management, and eventually decommissioning. Much of the inefficiency in this process centers on the transitions between tasks. Changes in configuration, data formats, architecture, and communication can cause lengthy roadblocks—and, in some cases, expensive rework. Having a single unified suite of tools that allow an easy flow between tasks minimizes the time lost in these transitions.

• Accessible functionality—Developing test and measurement applications requires specialized functionality. This can range from simple, like displaying data in a well-formatted waveform chart to something advanced, such as sound and vibration analysis routines. Unlike general-purpose software, NI tools include these capabilities easy to access, out of the box. This helps reduce delays caused by searching for and validating external or open-source libraries.

• AI enhanced productivity—For AI to effectively contribute to a test engineer’s productivity, it must have access to the system information and data they are working on. Not only should AI intelligence be built natively into the tools the engineer uses, but it must be taught with the methodologies and best practices of test engineering. The NI software portfolio is enhanced with NI Nigel™ AI, which can provide test development guidance by using the context of the user’s work directly within the development environment. Nigel can recommend system architecture approaches, help author code, and deliver insights from data sets to improve productivity.

• Seamless hardware integration—NI software provides native connectivity to hardware, providing easy access to the wide NI portfolio of I/O and deployment platforms for automated test. When using NI hardware, configuration utilities help the user locate and acquire data from multiple instruments simultaneously. Instrumentation in modular form factors, spread across one or more chassis, can be synchronized together to stream trustworthy data continuously to the host. Programs written in NI software can also be deployed to Linux real-time targets and FPGA targets for high-speed, high-reliability, and high-determinism applications—without deep knowledge of compile chains The native understanding of this hardware from within NI software tools is what makes this experience quicker and more hassle free than using general purpose tools. 

Develop with Confidence

Test and measurement applications are accelerating in complexity, driven by the rapid evolution of products and technologies entering the market. Software choice impacts both the short- and long-term abilities of a development team. Static or misaligned software will become limiting over time and slowly strangle a team’s productivity as requirements change.

NI software has a proven track record or leading the way in test technology, allowing engineers to use the platform to build not just products, but careers! Engineers using NI software are confident they can keep pace with these future requirements due to the open, adaptable architecture of the platform they use, with benefits including:

• High-level, yet flexible development—Minimize development time without limiting scope by using rapid-development application software combined with an open-ended programming language. This means repetitive or common tasks such as channel configuration can be set up in seconds, and unique functionality such as specialist instrumentation connectivity, proprietary IP, or custom logic can always be incorporated. The NI software platform allows engineers to work quickly and meet evolving test specifications.

• Open interoperability—Take advantage of the widest possible hardware and software ecosystem with the NI software platform. Choose from the industry’s largest open repository of more than 10,000 instrument drivers. Natively incorporate IP written in languages like Python, C, C++, MathWorks® MATLAB ® software, and more. Use industry protocols and standards like CAN, I2C, HTTP, web services, TCP, UDP, and more. These open integration options give test engineers confidence that they can use the NI software platform to develop automate their whole test system—not just parts of it.

• Up-to-date capabilities—New technology is becoming commercially available at a rapid rate and promises to disrupt development process to the advantage of those who can harness it. NI software has a rich, publicly published roadmap that demonstrates our commitment to applying the latest technology to test and measurement applications. From software such as new operating systems, artificial intelligence models, and protocols, to hardware elements like GPUs and FPGAs, the NI software platform is the first place where a test engineers find trusted implementation of the technology they need. This gives engineers confidence that they are working at the cutting edge of technology without being distracted from their product design to build the prerequisite infrastructure themselves.

• Security and trust—NI software leads the test industry in meeting the cybersecurity standards required by IT departments and government regulations alike. As part of our Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL), we generate SBOMs for NI LabVIEW and other software products. These are considered the gold standard referenced by many defense, aerospace, and automative companies and meet or exceed regulatory guidelines around the world including the EU and US. LabVIEW is inherently a memory-safe language due to its continuous compilation, managed buffers, and memory allocation±reducing the risk of vulnerabilities. Full encryption is also used in any networked technology, including system management tools and Nigel AI. 

Work Collaboratively

Test and measurement engineers work best when they can collaborate. This can be a challenge for many; the role can be considered niche within organizations dominated by design engineering. Test teams are also frequently spread across different locations, which can make it harder for engineers to get the support they need. NI software is designed with collaboration in mind, with sharing and tagging functionality, remote management capabilities, modern dev ops workflows and an active user community. NI software users are never working alone, contributing together toward: 

• Automated collaboration—Effective test execution requires a centralized platform for teams of all sizes to plan, manage, and optimize their operations together. NI software’s collaborative approach provides tools for physically distributed groups to share data, ideas, and comments remotely in a structured and productive way. View dashboards, check system health, deploy software or generate reports from systems across the organization. Use Nigel to find and orchestrate tasks and data from across a wide set of sources and times to work more effectively with your colleagues.

• Community engagement—NI software supports a vibrant community of engineers passionate about test and measurement applications who support one another. Building a measurement system requires more than just coding best practices. Everything from the signal path to the hardware choices, software architecture, and algorithm nuances must be considered. The NI software community includes test and measurement professionals with thousands of combined years of industry experience. With a healthy online support forum, 100+ in-person user groups, user-led conferences (in every global region), and educational courses, NI software supports engineers across the world to improve their proficiency and build successful careers.

• Team development—As test and measurement applications become more complex, they require larger development groups to contribute, as well as more rigorous processes for testing. NI software works within your existing CI/CD processes: diff and merge functions built into LabVIEW allow collaborative development on a single code base. You can package LabVIEW applications complete with dependencies into a Docker container to enable automated testing or revisions.  

NI software provides a productive, connected toolchain for test and measurement application development, helping teams work quickly and efficiently across tasks. Unlike general-purpose tools, NI software is optimized for test and is aligned to the specific needs and challenges of test engineers. With Nigel AI and a global community of tens of thousands of engineers with deep test expertise, NI software gives test teams the support they need to succeed.

Next Steps

• Learn more about the NI LabVIEW+ Suite
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