September 20, 2017 Topic: LVOOP Hardware Abstraction Layer in TestStand

[DerrickB]

Hello everyone,

I'm going to start off with a relatively large topic that will cover several of the topic ideas that came up yesterday. The two main points that were mentioned were more LVOOP and TestStand. This post will help me determine which segments I spend more time on, so if you have a preference on the topics below feel free to reply and let me know!

Covered topics will include:

• HAL design using LVOOP
  • Multi-layer heirarchy including a base instrument class, device type classes, and concrete device implementations 
  • Factory pattern capable of loading devices specified in a configuration file
  • Unified configuration scheme to satisfy configuration of the whole inheritance heirarchy
• Using LVOOP classes within TestStand and passing instances between test modules
• Customizing the process model to automate loading and initialization of HAL for all TestStand scripts

Again, feel free to point out which areas interest you most and maybe even ask some preliminary questions.

Cheers,

Derrick B

[DerrickB]

I'd like to thank everyone for stopping out today for the whirlwind that was touring one way to implement a Hardware Abstraction Layer and using it within TestStand. I was pleased with the interaction from the attendees and the questions that were asked, keep it up!

As for the sourcecode for the demo I'll be running through it to perform a few fixes and finish the subpanel implementation for configuration items specific to the the different devices (I've figured out how I'm going to do it!). Once its posted I'll post here again and I'll see if Kyle wouldn't mind sending out a link to the zip file.

Cheers!

[GoKu25]

Hi Derrick,

I have just started a work that involves developing a HAL library for devices that other developers would use in Teststand in the future. Is there a demo/tutorial for the topics you mentioned here? Could you please direct me in case such a thing exists

Best

Gokul

[DerrickB]

Unfortunately I can't find the presentation I had though I think I did everything with demos on this with the amount of code to cover.

The demo code can be grabbed at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dxZ5siyLjY-c4AllowKmtPor-8pb6m3D/view?usp=sharing

Quick rundown:

TS Hal folder contains the base instrument class, instrument manager, and a utilities library for loading devices from an INI file.

Demo Instruments contains code for the middle layer classes (PowerSupply, DUT) and the concrete child class implementations for specific models of devices.

Demo Test has some example TestStand modules that are written against the middle layer classes (PowerSupply, DUT) and leaves the specific implementation up to the devices selected in the Instrument Manager.

build is the output folder for all PPL and exe builds. It also contains the sample test sequence that can run in teststand.

[GoKu25]

Thanks for the reply. Could you please convert the Project to an earlier version as I use LV 2015 and TS 2014. It will be immensely helpful

[DerrickB]

2015 saved projects

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f1-BVKSEUrhQQ-IY5meq8zGj2Fc4WLNu/view?usp=sharing

It will likely be a bear of a task to go through all of the projects and get the build specs set back up correctly and all of the dependencies set back up to point to the dependency PPLs once they're re-built for 2015. I don't have a 2015 environment so I couldn't build all of the intermediate PPLs to include in the ZIP