VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTATION AND LABVIEW APPLICATION IN ELECTRONIC UNDERSTANDING

A typical system of Virtual Instrumentation (VI) is constituted by a set of devices capable of communicating between them and for a program that controls the mentioned communication. The device that controls the system of virtual instrumentation is a computer, whereas other devices are measurement devices (multimeters, oscilloscopes, sensors.) and other equipments (generators of sign, power sources, speed controls of motors.). From the information loaded by the different devices we can change the conditions of the test, modifying parameters of the measurement instruments. In an environment as the described one, the current trend is that a specialized software controls the system, coordinating the functioning of the different elements. One of these programs software is LabView of National Instruments(TM). Labview allows to load, to analyze and to monitor the information inside a graphical programming environment in which there are assembled objects called virtual instruments to form the program of application with which the user will interact. In this work we describe the concept of virtual instruments as reproductions of conventional measurement equipment, by using the graphical software language LabVIEW. Our objective was to create complementary laboratory tools for helping Electrical Engineering students in becoming familiar with basic measurement instrumentation and methods, and also to provide supporting teaching tools for students at electric circuit courses, allowing easy and immediate visualization of RC and RLC circuit responses at chosen parameter conditions.