Limitation of using Labview for RedPitaya developement

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mzeeshanarshad
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Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2015 6:38 am

Limitation of using Labview for RedPitaya developement

Post by mzeeshanarshad » Sun Dec 20, 2015 12:17 pm

Hello guys,

I would like to clearly understand what can we do by using Labview for development in RedPitaya. Its mentioned that RedPitaya can be "controlled" though LabView (and other tools). What does it actually mean?

As you may already know, National Instruments has its own line of products featuring Zynq FPGAs and they also let LabView users to program the FPGA completely the PL and PS side as well (Correct me if I'm wrong). So what I'm saying is that this LabView driver for RedPitaya, does it only help us run a small program on the OS in the PS side of the device or we can actually edit and program the PL side also?

Thanks.

Regards,

Shan

Nils Roos
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Re: Limitation of using Labview for RedPitaya developement

Post by Nils Roos » Sun Dec 20, 2015 7:17 pm

Hi Shan,
Its mentioned that RedPitaya can be "controlled" though LabView (and other tools). What does it actually mean?
The mechanism of controlling the Red Pitaya through LabView that is demonstrated in all the examples uses the scpi-server, which has a defined set of instructions and a fixed FPGA design. This of course limits you to the pre-existing functionality.

On the other hand, the most versatile mechanism of controlling the Red Pitaya is a remote shell, which is also available to LabView. You can achieve nearly everything in linux in a shell.
does it only help us run a small program on the OS in the PS side of the device or we can actually edit and program the PL side also?
You can program the PL side by executing a small program on the OS, so being able to run small programs on the OS is tantamount to being able to reprogram the PL.
I am not familiar with the NI products, but I would assume they offer nice building blocks that you can connect together all visual-like, and that they then generate the FPGA logic from these blocks and program them into the PL automatically. You won't have the same level of system integration on the Red Pitaya, obviously.
But you will be able to achieve the same results, and have greater degrees of freedom in the things you can do. (Though in order to leverage that freedom you will need to put in more work - sometimes considerably more)

mzeeshanarshad
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Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2015 6:38 am

Re: Limitation of using Labview for RedPitaya developement

Post by mzeeshanarshad » Mon Dec 21, 2015 12:12 am

Hi Nils,

Thanks for the detailed reply.
You can program the PL side by executing a small program on the OS
Okay but does that actually changes the fixed FPGA design? And if yes then how? I mean are you referring to generating my own .bit file and then letting the OS write to PL somehow? And I would need Vivado to do that?
You can achieve nearly everything in linux in a shell.
Actually, we want to employ RP to measure two RF signals continuously every 0.1 second i.e. their maximum, minimum, mean and rms value. Obviously we can already read the signal values using C and those SCPI commands but I'm afraid that its possible to do that continuously without missing samples. I do not want to change the FPGA PL side unless necessary.

Thanks for the prompt reply, once again. Sorry for alot of questions but we are assessing the capability of RP before investing it in large number of units.

Regards,

Shan

Nils Roos
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Re: Limitation of using Labview for RedPitaya developement

Post by Nils Roos » Tue Dec 22, 2015 1:21 am

Okay but does that actually changes the fixed FPGA design? And if yes then how?
The FPGA design can be completely or partially rewritten while the OS is running. The process takes less than a second for a complete replacement. The new logic then becomes effective immediately and remains until another reprogramming, or a reset or power cycle.
I mean are you referring to generating my own .bit file and then letting the OS write to PL somehow? And I would need Vivado to do that?
Yes, you could generate your own .bit file and load it into the PL. The Xilinx linux variant has the PL programming interface integrated into the kernel. You would use Vivado to design and prepare one or more bitstreams, which you could later load into the running Red Pitaya with a simple shell command. I can't say if you need to, but it is possible.
Actually, we want to employ RP to measure two RF signals continuously every 0.1 second i.e. their maximum, minimum, mean and rms value.
I'll address that in the other topic.

Amine My-taj
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Joined: Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:50 am

Re: Limitation of using Labview for RedPitaya developement

Post by Amine My-taj » Tue Nov 13, 2018 1:15 pm

Hi all,

I have a question in the same perspective, can we install LabVIEW directly in the RedPitaya operating system?

any hints are appreciated, Thanks.

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redpitaya
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Re: Limitation of using Labview for RedPitaya developement

Post by redpitaya » Mon May 27, 2019 7:20 am

Hi Amine,
Thank you for your question.
The RP board was not designed to work like that. Labview is a full fledged visual programming environment and needs a lot of resources to function.

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