Intelligent Technology Rapidly Infiltrated in Instrumentation Industry

(1) Application in Instrument Structure and Performance Improvement

First of all, intelligent automation technology opens up broad prospects for the application of instrumentation and measurement in related fields. Intelligent hardware and software are used to enable each instrument or instrument to accurately analyze and process current and previous data information at any time. The measurement process can be abstracted appropriately from low, medium and high levels to improve the existing measurement system. The performance and efficiency of the extended traditional measurement system, such as the use of neural networks, genetic algorithms, evolutionary computing, chaos control and other intelligent technologies, make instruments and meters to achieve high-speed, high efficiency, multi-function, high mobility and other performance.

Secondly, microchip technology such as microprocessors and microcontrollers can also be used in different instruments of distributed systems to design fuzzy control programs, set thresholds for various measurement data, and apply fuzzy rules to fuzzy logic. Various fuzzy relationships make various types of fuzzy decisions. The advantage is that it is not necessary to establish a mathematical model of the controlled object, nor does it require a large amount of test data, but only based on experience, summarizing appropriate control rules, off-line calculation of the application chip, on-site debugging, and producing accurate results according to our needs and accuracy. Analysis and punctual control actions.

Especially in sensor measurement, the application of intelligent automation technology is more extensive. Using software to implement signal filtering, such as fast Fourier transform, short-time Fourier transform, wavelet transform and other technologies, is an effective way to simplify the hardware, improve the signal-to-noise ratio, and improve the dynamic characteristics of the sensor, but it needs to determine the dynamic mathematical model of the sensor, and the higher order The filter has poor real-time performance. Using neural network technology, high-performance autocorrelation filtering and adaptive filtering can be realized. Make full use of the powerful self-learning, self-adaptive and self-organizing capabilities of artificial neural network technology, association and memory functions, and the characteristics of black box mapping between input and output of nonlinear complex relationships, in terms of applicability and fast real-time performance, etc. All of them will greatly exceed the complex function type, and can make full use of multi-sensor resources to comprehensively obtain more accurate and more reliable conclusions. The real-time and non-real-time, fast-changing and gradual-change, fuzzy, and deterministic data information may support each other, and may also conflict with each other. At this time, the object features are extracted and integrated until the final decision is made and the correct judgments are made. Will become a difficult point. So neural network or fuzzy logic will be the most worthy method. For example, gas sensor arrays are used for gas mixture identification. In signal processing methods, self-organizing map networks and BP networks can be combined to classify and then identify components, and the full-scale fitting of traditional methods can be converted into subsections. In order to reduce the complexity of the algorithm and improve the recognition rate. Another example is the difficulty of detecting and identifying food taste signals, which was once the main obstacle for research and development organizations. Now it is possible to use wavelet transforms for data compression and feature extraction, and then input the data into a fuzzy neural network trained with genetic algorithms, which greatly improves the recognition rate for simple compound tastes. For example, in the field of cloth fabric quality, flexible * hand handling of tactile signals, machine fault diagnosis, intelligent automation technology has also made a lot of successful examples.

(2) Application in Virtual Instrument Structure Design

The combination of instrumentation and measurement technology and computer technology has not only greatly improved the accuracy of measurement and the level of intelligent automation, especially the rapid development of computer hardware softening and software modularization of virtual instruments, and its integration with networked system resource programs. Optimizing the performance configuration has created more and more favorable conditions for the rapid improvement of the intelligent level of instrumentation.

In instrument and meter structure design, instrument manufacturers used to provide users with intelligent virtual instrument plug-and-play instrument drivers in the form of source code. In order to simplify the end user's use and development process, and constantly improve the operating efficiency and programming quality. With programming flexibility, related instrument manufacturers have made a new set of intelligent instrument driver software specifications based on the VXI plug-and-play bus instrument driver standard, and have made the following improvements in the structure and performance of the virtual instrument.

First, consider a high-level programming interface that takes into account the user's intuitive, easy-to-use, and maximum operating efficiency, and maintains the original VXI bus plug-and-play standard, to provide the same functional function call format.

Secondly, based on the latest Labwindows/CVI5.0 built-in development tools, intelligent instrumentation is used to enable IVI instrument driver code to be automatically generated under human-computer interaction. This simplifies a lot of programming. The workload also unified the programming structure and style of the driver code, and also greatly facilitated the use and maintenance of users at different levels.

Once again, a series of smart methods are applied to identify, track and manage all the various instrument states and settings so that users can directly enter all low-level settings, and through intelligent state management, so that users can, according to their needs, “test development” and “normal Run "switch between the two modes at will. In Test Development mode, the drive can intelligently automate a series of status checks to help detect various programming errors. When the program is debugged and put into use normally, the user can switch to the "normal operation" mode so that the driver software can run at a high speed. This not only ensures the safety and reliability of the instrument, but also allows the software to be put into high-speed operation at any time and maximize its operating efficiency.

In addition, because of adopting various intelligent methods, the driver can realize multi-threading and safe operation at the same time, and perform multi-thread parallel test; at the same time, the driver also has powerful simulation function, and can be developed and tested without connecting actual instruments. program. Information, please visit: Transmission and Distribution Equipment Network

The last characteristic is that the driver operation is only related to the test function, and has nothing to do with the interface bus mode adopted by the instrument. Only an initialization function InitwithOptions is used to distinguish between the instrument interface bus and the regional different usage.

In short, because the virtual instrument adopts a series of intelligent and automated means, it has completely changed the operating efficiency of the VXI bus plug-and-play standard instrument driver, the programming structure, style is inconsistent, programming is difficult, the quality is low, and the workload is large. Maintenance troubles and a series of defects, thus achieving a comprehensive and unified operation under conditions of high efficiency, high quality, safety, reliability, ease of use, and flexibility, shows the profound impact of intelligent automation technology on the rapid development of virtual instruments and the entire instrumentation industry.

(3) Application of Network Instrumentation

Since the instrument and computer are once networked, intelligent software and hardware (such as pattern recognition, neural network self-learning, self-adaptation, self-organizing, and associative memory functions) can be fully utilized to flexibly invoke and rationally configure various computers and instruments on the Internet. The respective resource characteristics and potential of the instrument produce a combined advantage of 11>2. For example, digital multimeters and oscilloscopes that are connected to the Web can now be used to distinguish different time and space conditions and category characteristics of instrumentation and measure critical values ​​using the Internet-connected digital multimeters and oscilloscopes to make different feature responses; distributed data can also be used The acquisition system replaces the data acquisition equipment that was used alone in the past to implement remote measurement and data collection across Ethernet or other networks, and storage and application of classification.

The networked intelligent measurement environment organically links various types of computers and instruments of different tasks on the Internet to complete various forms of tasks, such as sending data to a place where it is needed, after collecting data at a certain place. Copy multiple copies of the same data on demand, and send them to various departments in need; or send the measurement results to a remote database for storage at any time. Multiple users can monitor the same process at the same time. For example, engineering and technical personnel, quality control personnel, and supervisory leaders of each department can simultaneously monitor and control the same production and transportation process at remote and remote locations without having to visit the site. From all aspects of data, make decisions or establish databases to analyze the laws of phenomena. In the event of a problem, immediate or reconfiguration can be immediate, or immediate decision-making can be discussed and immediate action taken.

In addition, intelligent reconstruction information processing technology will also create a broader stage for instrumentation. Reconfigurable computers that combine the advantages of computers and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) not only require flexible configuration of a large number of programmable logic cell arrays (FPGAs) according to different computational tasks, but also their instruction level, bit level, and pipeline level. As well as task-level parallel computing, it runs hundreds of times faster than general-purpose computers.

To sum up, with the increasingly deep application of intelligent automation technology and the continuous expansion of application scope and scale, the development level of China's instrumentation industry will surely move to a higher level.