National Instruments Announces Products for Connecting NI LabVIEW to Industrial Networks

The new NI CompactRIO PROFIBUS C Series modules connect CompactRIO and NI Single-Board RIO to PROFIBUS DP networks as masters or slaves, which add high-performance measurements and custom control to systems that have standardised on PROFIBUS. In addition, NI announced a new one-port FOUNDATION Fieldbus H1 interface for USB and a pair of DeviceNet master boards for PXI and PCI.

Currently, PROFIBUS features more than 30 million installed nodes worldwide and is one of the leading industrial networks for connecting programmable logic controllers (PLCs), I/O, sensors and drives in industrial and automation systems. The new C Series modules make it possible to connect CompactRIO PACs and NI Single-Board RIO embedded systems to a PROFIBUS industrial network and add high-performance measurements, advanced analysis and custom field-programmable gate array (FPGA) logic to existing systems. Engineers can now easily upgrade and retrofit existing machines and systems by using the new PROFIBUS modules to quickly add high-performance, flexible NI hardware and LabVIEW graphical software to accomplish high-speed and custom tasks that traditional PLCs are not designed to solve.

FOUNDATION Fieldbus is a simple, two-way digital communication protocol commonly used in process automation. The new NI USB-8486 is a one-port FOUNDATION Fieldbus H1 interface that provides data logging, configuration and control in HMI and distributed control system applications. The new interface connects FOUNDATION Fieldbus devices to standard desktop, industrial and notebook PCs. The USB-8486 is ideal for portable data logging and in-the-field configuration and maintenance of devices and networks.

DeviceNet is an industrial protocol that is based on the controller area network (CAN) physical layer and is managed by the Open DeviceNet Vendors Association. The new NI PCI-8532 and NI PXI-8532 scanner (master) interfaces are specifically designed for applications that involve managing and controlling other DeviceNet devices on the network using LabVIEW graphical programming.

For more information on how NI PACs, embedded hardware and LabVIEW add a wide variety of functionality to existing industrial systems, readers can visit www.ni.com to view the white paper, “NI Connectivity to Industrial Communications” on the NI Developer Zone. For additional information on the specific protocols, readers can visit www.ni.com/profibus, www.ni.com/fieldbus and www.ni.com/devicenet.