Cannot find LabVIEW FPFA in my labview application

[manojrr]

Hello,

I recently installed LabVIEW 2021 and its associated drivers. I would like to work with NI 9145 compact chassis with FPGA. I cannot find the "LabVIEW FPGA" option in the GUI. Can you help?. What am I missing?

[ZYOng]

To add an FPGA target, you start with a blank project. 

See Setting Up EtherCAT on NI Programmable Controllers

In case you need further troubleshooting, see EtherCAT Slave Device is Not Recognized in LabVIEW Project and I Can't Detect My EtherCAT Device in NI MAX or LabVIEW

[manojrr]

Hi ZYong,

Thanks for the response. But, I saw a tutorial where it says once I open Labview, I get an option to create "labview fpga project", which looks different from a blank project. Any idea on this?

[ZYOng]

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/@manojrr wrote:

Hi ZYong,

Thanks for the response. But, I saw a tutorial where it says once I open Labview, I get an option to create "labview fpga project", which looks different from a blank project. Any idea on this?

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Where did you see that tutorial? Do you mind sharing the link?

[Bob_Schor]

Do you know about the difference between "LabVIEW" (which runs on a PC, but can also run on PXI devices and Macs) and "LabVIEW Real-Time", which runs (mostly) on LabVIEW Real-Time hardware (such as a PXI or a RIO) running a NI Real-Time Linux Operating System?  It is the Real-Time hardware that contains the FPGA.

When you want to program an FPGA, you first need to have LabVIEW Real-Time installed, which will (when you start LabVIEW) give you more options for Project to show you "starting Projects" that involve the LabVIEW Real-Time hardware (which you program from your PC, which acts as the "Host" machine, communicating with the Real-Time "Target" machine).  It is the Real-Time Target that can include a third processor, the FPGA.  You develop the code for the FPGA on your Host PC, then "deploy" it (shove it down a TCP/IP connection to the Real-Time Target and, through it, onto the FPGA within the Real-Time Target).

If programming LabVIEW on a PC is Difficulty 1, learning to program two separate, but communicating, routines on a Host and Real-Time Target is Difficulty 4, and adding programming the FPGA on the Real-Time Target is Difficulty < 4 (maybe 16?  It depends how experienced you've become on the two previous levels).

Bob Schor

[ZYOng]

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@Bob_Schor wrote:

 It is the Real-Time hardware that contains the FPGA.

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Great for pointing out the difference between different modules! However, FPGA is not only found on real-time hardware. You can do FPGA programming without the RT module on R Series, FlexRIO and some PXI/PCI modules with FPGA.

But in this case, only an RT target can be an EtherCAT master, thus RT Module is required to program the NI-914x EtherCAT slave chassis.

[Bob_Schor]

@ZYOng -- point taken.  My introduction to FPGA was the RIO architecture, and I was attempting to illustrate that FPGA coding, although still "LabVIEW" (and, thankfully, not VHDL), is not for the relatively-inexperience LabVIEW beginner, particularly one who hasn't had some experience with the "time" difference between LabVIEW, LabVIEW RT, and LABVIEW FPGA.

Bob Schor

[manojrr]

Hi Zyong,

Sorry it was not a tutorial, but a ticket which shows the "LabVIEW FPGA Project" as an option. I don't understand why I am not able to see it in my version. Here is the link to the ticket which shows the picture (Solved: Create New FPGA project: cannot find NI-9145 as target - NI Community)

Thanks

[ZYOng]

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@manojrr wrote:

Hi Zyong,

Sorry it was not a tutorial, but a ticket which shows the "LabVIEW FPGA Project" as an option. I don't understand why I am not able to see it in my version. Here is the link to the ticket which shows the picture (Solved: Create New FPGA project: cannot find NI-9145 as target - NI Community)

Thanks

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I guess most probably you don't have the LVFPGA module and NI-RIO driver installed.

Anyway, as mentioned in that thread:

The NI-9145 however is an EtherCAT Expansion Chassis and does not feature an integrared controller, just an FPGA chip. This Chassis cannot be found in the FPGA project template.

You can't use the FPGA project template to add your NI-9145 chassis.