As the Global Technology & Marketing Director at National Instruments, Rahman Jamal heads the regional marketing organizations for NI in the Americas, APAC, and EMEIA. He is a leading expert in the different industrial markets of interest to NI including test and measurement, design and control, industrial and embedded, automotive, and academia. In addition, he is a prolific author of articles, books and user-conference proceedings and a thought leader in many public forums on innovation policy - most recently within the domain of Cyber-Physical systems, the Internet of Things, the Industrial Internet of Things, and the German Industrie 4.0 initiative.
The big bang of smart devices is creating an inflection point in automated test – for both the test managers and engineers challenged with ensuring the quality of these devices at increasingly lower costs, and the vendors that serve them. To test their smart devices, organizations are transitioning from the status quo of rack-and-stack box instruments and closed turnkey ATE systems to smarter test systems that deliver ongoing connectivity and problem solving capability that meets or exceeds the device(s) under test.
What is National Instruments Approach to the need of Smarter Test & Measurement Solutions?
There are two approaches to serve the test and measurement industry. One approach assumes that the vendor is smarter than the customer and the vendor ultimately knows what the customer needs better than the customer himself. This approach deals with complete fixed functionality point solutions. I would say for several decades of test and measurement, this strategy was exactly what the market needed and demanded. So, it simply made sense because things were a lot simpler at that time.
So when we move on to look at what is happening in the market today we see that the world is changing, things are getting a lot smarter, a lot more things are being connected. This phenomenon is known by many names, whether it is Internet of Things, Connected World, Internet of Everything, Make in India or Industrie 4.0 in Germany– another term for smart factory. The fact is that devices and systems are getting smarter and if you jump to traditional, vendor-defined test and measurement strategies to solve these applications, you would be confronted with a fundamental challenge. Because each application is unique and each of their test systems are therefore unique and require customization. And if a test vendor decided that they were going to service each and every one of these requirements in the old paradigm, they would need more engineers than they could afford and be too slow. To try to keep up, customers try linking multiple boxes together – when they really were not intended to be used together. And customers are getting frustrated , as they find these type of instruments slow, expensive, and big. We at NI understand this and actually understood this the day when NI was founded 40 years ago. From that day on we took a different path than the vendor-defined closed-box approach.
NI has a unique approach to this disruptive change: this second approach to servicing the test and measurement market is a platform. It assumes that the customer is the smartest piece of the solution and only they know the requirements. This approach focuses on interoperability and the user’s ability to both automate and customize each solution with modular hardware and flexible software. In this approach, the customer is in control of what their solution turns out to be, and the vendor provides the tools to help them design it. Examples of open, vibrant ecosystems are NI, Apple, Android, Coursera, Yelp.
Let’s have a look at Apple:
The whole Apple platform is based on hardware that changes its personality through apps. With the relevant apps your smartphone or tablet turns into a camera, a navigation system, a guitar tuner or whatever. So as the devices around us become increasingly smarter, customers have two choices today: wait for their vendor to deliver a temporary solution that cannot be modified, or take a smarter option. A platform-based approach of modular hardware and open, flexible software that is supported by an ever-expanding ecosystem lets them customize their solution.
National Instruments has followed the platform-based approach for the past 40 years but people have started understanding it only now with the rise of mobile platforms. Please allow me to quote our CEO and NI co-founder Dr. James Truchard in this context when the company was established:"We want to do for engineers what the spreadsheet did for financial analysis." So what does this mean? The spreadsheet democratized the ability to perform financial analysis – anyone could do it. Everyone had access to it. We wanted to democratize the tools and platform needed to make a customized test and measurement solution, a smarter test system, and just like with the spreadsheet, software was the key.
The term “smart test system” is by no means just a marketing buzz word – it describes an approach that centers on flexible software and modular hardware. A smart test system is designed for automated test from ground-up, it allows customers to gather all the data and therefore insight that customers need in order to make well-informed decisions. A smart system is supported by an ever-expanding ecosystem of partners, developers, integrators, IPs and not really limited by the innovation of the vendor’s R&D team. It is based on an open flexible software, modular hardware, and a vibrant ecosystem and the assumption is that the customer knows better or the best compared to the vendor.
NI has been pushing the Modular Approach for Test & Measurement using PXI. Can you tell us more about this?
NI's PXI platform is the best example of modular hardware. PXI has grown by a CAGR of more than 15% for the past 5 years and Frost and Sullivan estimates that it will continue on this trajectory. Software was the key to this growth.
On the software side, users can take advantage of the productivity of the LabVIEW and TestStand software environments, along with a vibrant ecosystem of partners, add-on IP and applications engineers, to help dramatically lower the cost of test, reduce time to market and future-proof testers for tomorrow’s challenging requirements.
The power of this platform and ecosystem is apparent in the industry today and members of the vendor class that once swore they would never legitimize PXI, have joined the PXI bandwagon. However, they aren’t really taking a platform-based approach plus ecosystem, which is at the heart of this approach.. Everything is still locked up, still out of reach for the customers.
You launched World’s first VST in 2012 and now you are launching its second generation. What is the motivation behind it and what’s new?
In 2012, we introduced the world’s first vector signal transceiver, VST, combining the functionality of a vector signal analyzer, a vector signal generator and digital instruments into a single device. It also features user-programmable FPGAs that can be customized through LabVIEW by the user or Alliance Partners. VST is the perfect example of a platform-based approach that is supported by a vibrant ecosystem.
The next generation of wireless devices’ requirements shows the hunger for higher throughput, lower latency and high reliability that basically never stops. In order to meet these requirements, we first have to understand the market and then we have to address it. So we didn’t stop after the announcement of the VST in 2012 and worked tirelessly to address the new requirements of the market and at the same time improve the size of the VST while the others were trying to play catch-up.
The 2nd generation vector signal transceiver combines a 6.5 GHz RF vector signal generator, 6.5 GHz vector signal analyzer, high-performance user-programmable FPGA and high-speed serial and parallel digital interfaces into a single 2-slot PXI Express module. With 1 GHz of bandwidth, the latest VST is ideally suited for a wide range of applications including 802.11ac/ax device testing, mobile/Internet of Things device testing, 5G design and testing, RFIC testing, radar prototyping and more.
While test requirements are becoming increasingly difficult, it delivers excellent RF measurement accuracy for better insight into the behavior of your device. With a LabVIEW programmable Xilinx FPGA you can design your own instrument to solve the most advanced measurement challenges. Thanks to the PXI platform a single VST can be expanded into infinite configurations from an 8/8 MIMO system to a mixed single IoT tester, all with certain nanoseconds of synchronization and powered by the latest multi-core processors. The software-designed architecture powering the 2nd generation VST enables engineers to uniquely customize the user-programmable FPGA. Using the intuitive LabVIEW system design software, engineers can transform the VST into exactly what they need it to be at the firmware level and ultimately address the most demanding test and measurement challenges.
Can you give us example of any application where this VST has been used?
One of the applications where this device has been used is in automotive radar testing. For these tests the test instrument must be able to emulate the environment in which the sensor will be used. One of the ways a test system can accomplish this is target emulation. This is when the instrument applies the Doppler frequency shift and delay to a signal to emulate one or more moving objects. So the wide bandwidth of the VST is required to emulate the targets that are in close proximity to the sensor. Due to its open FPGA, customers can create the unique target emulator profiles using LabVIEW. As a result, they not only test the RF characteristics of the radar but also the behavioral characteristics. And this is one of the advantages of having multiple instruments in one instrument with the capability of programmable FPGAs. Now this is a perfect example where the open platform can enable the convergence of different worlds, which the automotive world is seeing today in the context of connected cars.
Let me cite Niels Koch, component owner radar systems at Audi AG, who perfectly describes how they are addressing their current challenges in autonomous driving:
“The combination of the industry’s widest bandwidth and low latency software-designed instrument allowed us to discover our automotive radar sensors as never before, and even allowed us to identify problems very early in the design phase that were previously impossible to catch. With the VST and FPGA programmable by LabVIEW, we were able to rapidly emulate a wide range of diverse scenarios, thus influencing safety and reliability aspects in autonomous driving.”
You earlier mention that, ‘VST is the perfect example of platform-based approach that is supported by a strong ecosystem.’ What do you mean by ecosystem here?
As we have grown our platform, an ecosystem has developed around it, creating a vast support network for smart test engineers. We have directly facilitated our alliance partners and integrators to take our platform to a complete solution for customers. But it doesn't stop at integration. There are hundreds of toolkits available on the LabVIEW Tools Network generated by the community. There are numerous field and support engineers from NI close to our customers’ test systems for consultation and advice. And most importantly, there are more than 300,000 users doing the same tasks, ready to share code and insight in online forums and user groups. With LabVIEW, almost nothing starts from scratch anymore unless our users want it to.
How does the Platform and Ecosystem give NI a competitive edge against competitors?
There are multiple examples that actually just illustrate the power of the vibrant ecosystem. Vendors simply cannot do it all on their own. Therefore, our NI platform is the core, but the power of the ecosystem with the 1,000 partners is unmatchable and something that other companies who are on a competitive level with us, struggle with. The competition is actually not about products, it’s about the open platform and the ever-growing ecosystem surrounding it. The ecosystem grows organically and exponentially. You cannot predict in which direction it will grow, driven by a certain market trend. Let’s take an example since we are talking about automotive: with the rise of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) in the automotive world, we may perhaps see a growing need for customized solutions, software tools, modules etc. based on the NI platform. All of a sudden the ecosystem will respond and be flourishing with ADAS expertise and growing solutions and IPs around this trend. This is nothing you can predict, yet it has the power to disrupt the market.
Though PXI seems to be a better approach to test & measurement, many vendors & customers are still sticking to the conventional T&M approaches of having fixed boxes – Why do you feel that is?
Allow me to explain with a simple example: if you were to ask the kids of today if they know what a cassette recorder or even a walkman is, they will just laugh their heads off, because they just know smartphones, mobile devices and the like. They simply grew up with hese devices. Whether students graduate with a degree in mechanical, biomedical, or electrical engineering, all of them have grown up with this platform-based new look and feel, and tools with touch-screen technology. They will always be turning towards that by default.There is a tendency in human nature to stick to what you know best. Which is why we see a barrier with traditional users – they stick to the traditional technology they have been used to since years. The newer users are familiar with new technologies and therefore the ones who are pretty active in the modular approach and in terms of using the community and ecosystem to its fullest.
What Steps is NI Taking to Ensure that Students Get Access to this Platform and Ecosystem?
We have a huge program called LabVIEW Academy.
The LabVIEW Academy Program provides a classroom curriculum package to academic institutions and supports both credit and noncredit courses. LabVIEW Academy is for anyone seeking LabVIEW education and knowledge through an academic institution. After completing the LabVIEW Academy Program, students have the opportunity, knowledge and tools to attempt the Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer (CLAD) exam.
Hands-on learning is what solidifies the comprehension of theoretical concepts and prepares students for careers and advanced research. Skills learned in the classroom paired with platforms that scale to industry prepare students to become the innovators of tomorrow. The same industry-leading NI hardware and software technology used by more than 35,000 companies also improves education in more than 6,000 universities around the world.
And every day, researchers at academic institutions around the world use NI platforms to solve grand challenges in numerous application areas.
What is NI’s approach towards 5G? And how does NI plan to support this new standard?
5G will undoubtedly evolve our wireless networks to heights never before imagined, but its advancement doesn’t come without challenges. Researchers must not only address the requirements of unprecedented wireless data rates but also find solutions for network latency and responsiveness while accommodating a thousandfold increase in capacity. And if all that weren’t enough, service operators are demanding that these advancements consume less energy than existing infrastructure.
So how do we begin to solve these complex challenges? The answer lies in prototypes and, more specifically, the kind of 5G prototypes that enable wireless researchers to test experimental ideas using real systems in real-world scenarios. When done right, these 5G prototypes can lay the foundation for rapidly increasing an organization’s time-to-market schedule.
To expedite the time it takes to produce a working prototype, many researchers have adopted a platform-based design approach that embraces a unified design flow. It starts with math and simulation and then maps the algorithm in a system and working hardware. Traditional approaches have grown too expensive and time-consuming. A platform-based design approach promises the possibility to deliver these new developments faster, just as the researchers at places like Lund University, Nokia Networks, NYU Wireless, and Samsung are already demonstrating.
