RIO Developer Essentials Guide for Academia

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Introduction to the "Developer Essentials Guide" and software setup

An overview of what this guide has to offer as well as software requirements and setup information.

Introduction to the NI RIO platform.

Introduction to the NI Academic RIO Device platform.

LabVIEW and Academic RIO work together to offer a comprehensive platform for all of your embedded control and monitoring requirements. These application examples highlight what you can accomplish and will be helpful to jumpstart your own project development.

"Embedded Control and Monitoring" video
RIO guide

This 3-minute video from NI introduces the basic ideas behind embedded control and monitoring (ECM) with the NI reconfigurable I/O (RIO) hardware and software platform which includes the Academic RIO Device products.

Software architecture for RIO embedded control and monitoring applications
RIO guide

A standard software architecture that lends itself to a wide variety of system controller designs that require a PC-based user interface.

NI Academic RIO Device architecture overview
RIO guide

A high-level overview of the Academic RIO Device architecture and features.

Academic RIO Device Toolkit Express VIs
RT guide

Develop Academic RIO Device applications by writing code exclusively for the RT target, and use Express VIs to access the wide variety of I/O devices implemented by the default Device FPGA personality.

Real-Time (RT) programming: Basic procedures
RT guide

Create a new LabVIEW project for the RT target, use the Academic RIO Device Toolkit and default FPGA personality, and deploy a VI as the start-up application.

RT programming: FPGA personalities
RT guide

The FPGA "personality" (bitstream configuration file) determines how the RT target interacts with peripheral devices. The personality can also implement custom functionality.

Develop an FPGA VI
FPGA guide

Develop your own FPGA-targeted VI to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the FPGA target such as high-speed I/O, precision I/O timing, parallel processing, and functionality not offered by the RT processor and Academic RIO Device Toolkit default personality; you can also augment the default personality with your needed capability.

FPGA programming: Simulation techniques
FPGA guide PC guide

Run the VI with simulated I/O or create a testbench on the PC host to apply a test sequence as the FPGA VI input and monitor the resulting output sequence.

FPGA programming: IP blocks
FPGA guide

Reuse (import) VHDL code and configure Xilinx IP blocks as drop-in components on the LabVIEW block diagram.

RT procedures: System administration
RT guide

Set the administrator password to secure your Academic RIO Device system, adjust the system time and date, and manage the installed software set add-ons.

RT procedures: File system
RT guide PC guide

Connect to the Academic RIO Device file system through your browser with "Web-Based Monitoring and Configuring" or by mounting the file system as a drive on your host PC with WebDAV.

RT programming: Timed loops
RT guide

A "timed loop" is a while-loop structure that executes at a precise user-specified rate. Timed loop are particularly useful for process control loops that demand a reliable update rate.

RT programming: Interrupts
RT guide

Use an onboard timer or an external event interrupt request (IRQ) to immediately execute a task.

RT inter-process communication
RT guide

Exchange data between process loops running in parallel on the RT target.

FPGA inter-process communication
RT guide

Exchange data between process loops running in parallel on the RT target.

RT/host inter-target communication
RT guide PC guide

Transfer data, commands, and status between the RT target and a host system.

RT procedures: Network-published shared variables (NPSVs)
RT guide PC guide

An NPSV behaves like a global variable to connect the RT target and PC host through a network.

FPGA/RT and FPGA/host inter-target communication
FPGA guide RT guide PC guide

Transfer data, commands, and status between the FPGA target and a host system (RT or PC).

RT programming: Queue-based state machines
RT guide PC guide

Queue-based state machines excel at implementing system control, data measurement and processing, and other tasks to respond to inputs from the surrounding physical system and user interface. Learn about three popular design patterns: queued state machine (QSM), queued message handler (QMH), and event-driven producer-consumer loops.

RT networking: Get connected
RT guide

Set up wired and wireless networks and connect to the Internet.

RT networking: IP addresses
RT guide PC guide

Display available IP addresses on the PC host and RT target; learn my public Internet IP address by calling a Web service.

RT networking: email
RT guide

Send email (including attached files) and text messages from the Academic RIO Device.

RT networking: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
RT guide

TCP is a reliable connection-based IP networking protocol used between LabVIEW applications as well as other IoT devices.

RT networking: User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
RT guide

UDP is a simple and efficient connectionless IP networking protocol used between LabVIEW applications as well as other IoT devices.

RT networking: Web services
RT guide

Use the infrastructure of the Web for machine-to-machine exchange of information.

Web services overview
RT guide

A "Web service" uses the infrastructure of the Web for machine-to-machine exchange of specific information. The Academic RIO Device can call Web services to retrieve information and can also host Web services to provide information to other systems.

Web services: calling a Web service technical principles
RT guide

Learn the technical principles necessary to create VIs that can call Web services which return information in the form of JSON strings.

Web services: hosting a Web service technical principles
RT guide

Learn the technical principles necessary to host a Web service on the Academic RIO Device. Remote clients such as another LabVIEW-based target, an IoT device, or a conventional browser can retrieve sensor measurements and control indicators and actuators using commands obtained from the remote client's request query string.