National Instruments Extends Environmental Monitoring Capabilities

By DE Editors

With National Instruments’ (Austin, TX) release of a new instrument driver for the NI LabVIEW graphical system design platform,  users can interface with environmental monitoring sensors that communicate via SDI-12, a serial-based communication protocol optimized for battery-powered intelligent sensors. Using NI LabVIEW SDI-12 Application Programming Interface (API) software, researchers, engineers and scientists can easily acquire measurements such as turbidity, dissolved oxygen, tank level, soil pH,  conductivity, and other critical environmental sensor measurements.

The SDI-12 protocol makes it possible to communicate with a wide variety of sensors and recorders that are most commonly used in environmental data acquisition applications such as climate change tracking, water quality and testing,  ecological research, soil monitoring, agriculture, and weather analysis.

Using the LabVIEW SDI-12 API, researchers, engineers and scientists can connect traditional environmental data with the wide variety of I/O that works with LabVIEW, making it a comprehensive and flexible environmental data-logging solution.

The LabVIEW SDI-12 API, combined with an RS-232 to SDI-12 converter and any computer or NI programmable automation controller that includes a serial port, can be used to make environmental measurements in a laboratory setting or deploy stand-alone systems into remote locations.

The LabVIEW SDI-12 API can be downloaded for free from the NI Instrument Driver Network. Readers also can view a white paper: “Building an Environmental Monitoring System for SDI-12 Devices.”

For details,  visit National Instruments.

Sources:  Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.