Simulate PXIe-5170R on Windows desktop

[gregoryng]

Hi there, I am trying to do some proof of concept work for a PXIe-5170R before we purchase one.  

Is it possible to program our reconfigurable I/O and simulate this?  I wanted to start with the sample project "Multirecord Acquisition" and run this, showing that the decimation in the example works.  I have gotten the example code to compile and synthesize by following the PXIe-5170R Getting Started Guide .

I then tried to see if I could add a simulated PXIe-5170R device to the computer in NI max by going to Devices and Interfaces -> Create Simulated DAQmx device and adding a high speed digitizer, but 5170R or 5171R was not listed.  

Is this, or something similar, supported, or will I have to purchase before I can see the FPGA files will do?  It seems like simulating generic FPGA files is supported based on what I read around the FPGA desktop execution node.

I happen to be using Labview 2015 SP1 on Windows 10.

FYI I've seen this topic:

https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Simulate-PXIe-5170R/td-p/3151052

Thanks!

-gn

[GregoryWF · Accepted solution]

I believe what you're wanting to do here is to change the FPGA Target execution mode in the LabVIEW project to be Simulation (Simulated I/O).

Then you need to go to the block diagram of the main VI and change the Open FPGA Bitfile node to refer to the simulated project item instead of a bitfile on disk.

The limitation here is that you won't be able to simulate using a compiled .lvbitx file. That file is only used to program real hardware.

[gregoryng]

Thanks for that, I wouldn't have thought to reconfigure that VI reference.  That got me started and I was able to simulate. 

I attached some screenshots showing what I did (for the next person reading). 

This is what it looked like while selecting the FPGA VI rather than the bitfile.

I also had to change my memory type from DRAM_U384x2 to BRAM_U768 for simulation (as noted in the multirecord acquisition example VI), to fix a "Memory is Full" error if you don't do this.

I also had to add a little constant node in the host VI:

 

And then I ran the host VI and got it to show me some waveforms (kinda slow, which seems reasonable):

 

Some other notes that might also be helpful for someone:

I also looked at this example VI for trying out the default non-FPGA behavior in:

C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2015\examples\instr\niScope\niScope EX Simulated Acquisition.vi

I was then able to select:

• Model: PXIe-5170R
• Board Type: PXIe
• Input Impedance: 50 ohms

And that let me run a simulated acquisition.

I also found this page which has some more information about loading a bitfile but haven't gotten very far with it:

https://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/370592AB-01/digitizers/using_fpga_extensions/

[kenneth-jasper1]

Hello, does anyone know how I can start the measurement data recording with a digital trigger like PFI0 or one of the backplane triggers? Which .vi I have to use to configure the digital trigger?