National Instruments Releases LabVIEW Drivers For Wireless Sensor Networks


1Mb VIEW Extends to Wireless Sensors from Accsense, Accutech and Crossbow Technology

AUSTIN, Texas - Oct. 17, 2006 - National Instruments (Nasdaq: NATI) today announced LabVIEW drivers for wireless sensor networks, giving engineers and scientists working with these devices the ability to fully integrate their ZigBee, IEEE 802.15.4 or proprietary wireless sensors into the National Instruments LabVIEW graphical development environment. The free driver software works with sensors from three wireless-sensing leaders -Accsense, Accutech and Crossbow Technology - and includes communication functions and example programs compatible with sensors from each vendor.

Wireless sensor vendors typically offer fixed-functionality application software for wireless sensor network configuration, communication and monitoring. Now with NI LabVIEW, developers using wireless sensors have an open and flexible development environment to easily customize an application or integrate data from the wireless network with other data acquisition, analysis or reporting functionality. LabVIEW also includes more than 600 graphical and text-based math and analysis functions that developers can use to process data acquired from wireless sensor networks.

With the drivers, developers can start reading from their sensors within a matter of minutes, saving them time and resources because they do not have to write custom interfaces themselves. Additionally, the software includes a fully documented template to quickly build a LabVIEW interface for wireless sensors not natively supported by the driver software.

"These new LabVIEW drivers for wireless sensor networks extend the LabVIEW platform to the growing number of wireless interfaces such as ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4," said John Hanks, NI director of measurement and control hardware. "Connectivity to these wireless sensors opens up a whole new level of functionality for environmental monitoring, research, industrial monitoring and test applications for engineers and scientists."

With these LabVIEW drivers, which can downloaded at www.ni.com/wsn, engineers and scientists now have an open and flexible alternative to software solutions for new wireless-enabled applications.

About the Instrument Driver Network
The Instrument Driver Network is the industry's largest source for LabVIEW and LabWindows/CVI instrument drivers. Engineers and scientists can visit www.ni.com/idnet to access more than 5,000 instrument drivers from more than 225 vendors supporting wireless, GPEB. Ethernet/LAN, USB and serial I/O communication buses.

About National Instruments
For 30 years, National Instruments (www.ni.com) has been a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation - a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging PCs and commercial technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for test, control and design applications through easy-to-integrate software, such as NI LabVIEW, and modular measurement and control hardware for PXI, PXI Express. PCI, PCI Express. USB and Ethernet.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has 4.000 employees and direct operations in nearly 40 countries. For the past seven years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.

Pricing and Contact Information
Wireless Sensor Networks LabVIEW Driver
11500 N Mopac Expwy, Austin, Texas 78759-3504
Tel: (800) 258-7022. Fax: (512) 683-9300
E-mail: info@ni.com
Web: ni.com/wsn

CVI, LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.

All Topics