EE-379: Control Systems

LAB 4: Data Acquisition in LabVIEW

Lab Viva Total

Report Marks / /15
Student name Reg. No.
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10

EE-379: Control Systems, Lab 4

Prepared by: Dr. Ammar Hasan and Mr. Saqib Nazir

Lab 04: Data Acquisition and Control in LabVIEW and Simulink

1. Objectives
• Introduction to data acquisition

Page 1
 • Learn data acquisition in LabVIEW using NI ELVIS

2. Data Acquisition

Data acquisition is the process of sampling real world physical signals and converting them
into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer.

For example, a physical signal is the humidity of a room as a function of time. Most of the
humidity sensors generate an analog voltage/current based on the current value of the
humidity. However, computers or microcontrollers cannot works with analog values. A
data acquisition system will sample this analog signal and convert each sample into a
digital numeric value. This would allow digital machines like a computer to analyze the
physical signal.

Some of the other physical signals are temperature, pressure, flow rate of a fluid in a pipe,
motor speed, pendulum angle, wind speed, etc.

Whenever we are working with physical systems or physical signals, without data acquisition
we would not be able to utilize the power of computers to analyze them.

Data acquisition systems (DAQs) typically have the following two components:
i. Sensors that convert physical signals to analog electrical signals
ii. Analog to digital converters, which convert conditioned sensor signals to digital
values.

2.1. Data acquisition devices for modern computers

Most data acquisition hardware that interface with computers are based on a PCI, USB, or
a similar interface. They are usually compatible with the popular engineering software
like MATLAB, LabVIEW, Simulink, etc. This allows us to easily interface real physical
signals in our simulations.

By definition, data acquisition is only converting analog signals to digital. However, if we

want to interface our simulation software (e.g. MATLAB, Simulink, etc.) with a physical
system (e.g. DC motor), we would also like to be able to generate inputs for that system.
The inputs for physical systems are also often analog in nature. Moreover, some physical
systems may also have digital outputs (like the optical encoders in a DC motor) and
digital inputs (on/off switches). Therefore, most modern data acquisition hardware not
only have data acquisition ability (i.e. convert analog signals to digital), but can also

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generate analog/digital outputs and also have digital inputs. Such data acquisition devices
make it very easy for us to interface physical systems with computers and analyze them.

In our control laboratory we have a USB based data acquisition device called the NI
ELVIS. It is manufactured by a very famous company called National Instruments. It has
the functionality for all inputs/outputs i.e. analog I/O and digital I/O. This hardware is
compatible with the LabVIEW software. In this handout we will see how we can use this
hardware to interface with the DC motor and the inverted pendulum, which are physical
systems.

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3. Introduction to the NI ELVIS DAQ device and QNET DC motor

NI ELVIS board with a QNET DC motor installed on it is shown in the figure below. The
different components are listed in the table.

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3.1. Instructions to connect and power up the NI ELVIS

i. Without turning on the power adapters, connect the power adapter cables at point 5 and
point 9. See the figure and the table for details.
ii. Connect a USB cable at point 6 of the NI ELVIS board. Connect the other end to your
PC.
iii. Turn on the supply for power adapters. iv. Turn on the switch near point 5 of the NI
ELVIS. The switch is on the rear panel of the NI ELVIS.
v. Turn on the switch at point 2 of the NI ELVIS. If the DC motor starts running,
turn the board off and inform the lab staff.
vi. The power (point 3) and ready (point 4) LEDs of the NI ELVIS should be on
now. vii. The LEDs on the DC motor board at point 8 will also turn on.
viii. The NI ELVIS board and the DC motor are now ready to use.

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3.2. Schematic of DC motor signals and NI ELVIS channels

The figure below shows which channels of the NI ELVIS board are used by the DC motor
and for what signal.

i. Analog output channel AO#0 is used to generate the voltage to be applied to the motor.
ii. Analog input channel AI#1 is used to acquire the armature current of the motor.
iii. Digital input channel DI#0 is connected to the encoder and used to determine the
position of the motor.
iv. Analog input channel AI#4 is used to acquire the speed of the motor.

With this handout you will also be provided another document “QNET User Manual.pdf”.
Read section 4 of this document to get more details of the DC motor.
4. Data Acquisition using LabVIEW

We have given a brief introduction to the NI ELVIS and QNET DC motor. Now we will see
how we can use LabVIEW for data acquisition. In this section we will only show the data

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acquisition for the DC motor. However, the data acquisition for any device is similar in
LabVIEW especially if the DAQ is manufactured by National instruments (NI).

DAQmx is the LabVIEW driver for the programming of data acquisition hardware in
LabVIEW. It is a single programming interface for programming analog input, analog
output, digital I/O, & counters on hundreds of multifunction DAQ hardware devices. The
following are the steps for data Acquisition using DAQmx:

1. Create a virtual channel and task using the NI-DAQmx Create Virtual
Channel VI
2. Write or Read data using DAQmx Write or DAQmx Read VI respectively

4.1. Generating voltage for DC motor using analog output channel AO#0

i. Open LabVIEW and create a new VI by going to File » New VI

ii. Right-click on the block diagram and select Measurement I/O
iii. Drop the “NI-DAQmx Create Channel VI” to the block diagram and choose
“AO voltage”

iv. Right click on the physical channel input of “NI-DAQmx Create Virtual Channel VI”
and create constant. Here you will select the channel you want to use. According to the
schematic in QNET User Manual, the DC motor voltage is generated at analog output

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 channel 0. Select this channel from the drop down menu of the Physical channel
constant.

v. According to the QNET User Manual, the output of the AO#0 is connected to an
amplifier with a gain of 2.3 and the maximum and minimum voltage for the DC motor
are +24 and -24, respectively. Therefore, we should set the output signal range from (-
24/2.3) to (24/2.3). However, to be on the safe side, we will keep the output signal
range from -8 to 8 volts.
vi. Create constants for maximum and minimum value and enter 8 and -8
respectively

vii. Right-click on the block diagram and select Measurement I/O

viii. Drop the “NI-DAQmx Write” to the block diagram and select Analog-DBL-
1Channel-1Sample

ix. Now go to the front panel and insert a pointer slide from Numeric Control palette.
Name this input block as “voltage input”. Right click on the pointer slide and open its
properties. Go to scale tab and enter a range of -10 to 10.

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 x. Now go to block diagram and connect the voltage input block to the data input of the
DAQmx Write.

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 xi. The VI that we have created will only generate a single sample for the output
voltage. To continuously generate the sample we have to insert a simulation
loop. Insert a Control and Simulation loop outside the DAQ to execute the
simulation diagram until the Control & Simulation Loop reaches the simulation
final time by right-clicking on Block Diagram and using path shown in figure:

xii. Insert the Control and Simulation loop outside the DAQmx Write

xiii. Double-click on top left of the loop. A pop-up window will appear. Configure
same simulation parameters and timing parameters as shown in the figure:

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 xiv. When setting the voltage with the slider input, we are not considering the gain of
the amplifier between AO#0 and the DC motor. To accommodate for this gain
we insert a reciprocal of this gain in our VI. In the block diagram, insert a gain
block by going to Functions Palette >> Control Design and Simulation >>
Simulation >> Signal Arithmetic >> Gain. Set the gain to 1/2.3 = 0.43

xv. This completes the voltage generation part of the VI. Run the VI and change the
slider to apply different voltages to the motor. The speed of the motor should
change.

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4.2. Acquiring for DC motor speed using analog input channel AI#4

i. Follow similar steps as for the voltage generate to configure the DAQ Assistant
for acquiring the motor speed. The differences are:
• Select analog input channel 4 instead of analog output channel 0 and use
DAQmx read instead of DAQmx write
• Set the signal input range from -10 to 10 volts

Now go to the front panel and insert a numeric indicator. Name this indicator as
“speed”

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 ii. In the block diagram, connect the data output of the “DAQmx Write” to the
numeric indicator block

iii. Run the VI and apply some voltage to the motor. If the motor is moving you
should see some non-zero value in the numeric indicator for the speed.

iv. According to the QNET User Manual, the tachometer calibration is 2987
RPM/volts. There 2987 rotations in a minute, the tachometer generates 1 volt.
Since we are acquiring the voltage from the tachometer, we are not seeing the
speed of the motor in any standard units on our numeric indicator. To
accommodate for the calibration of the tachometer, we will multiply the acquired
voltage by a factor of 2987. This will give us the speed of the motor in RPM.

v. In the block diagram, insert a multiplier block to scale the acquired voltage.
Rename the numeric indicator as “Speed (RPM)”.

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 vi. Test your VI again. Now you should be seeing the speed in RPM.

vii. Since in the earlier labs we derived the transfer function for motor speed in
rads/sec, we would also like to have the speed in these units. Insert another
numeric indicator in your VI and name it “Speed rads/sec”. Scale the speed in
RPM to find the speed in rads/sec. The formula is given below:

1 RPM = 2*pi/60 rads/sec

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 viii. Test your VI again. Now you should be able to see the speed in both units.

4.3. Acquiring for position of the DC motor speed using digital input
channel DI#0

i. The data acquisition of the encoder is more complicated than acquisition or

generation of analog signals. Therefore, we have provided you with a VI that
contains blocks for data acquisition of the encoder. Open the encoder.vi provided
to you. Go to the block diagram. Copy the “encoder config” and “pos read”
blocks to your VI. Connect the block as shown in the figure below.

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 ii. Connect the outputs of the “pos read” block to two numeric indicators. Name
them “position degrees” and “position rads”.
iii. Every time we connect the NI ELVIS to the PC, it is assigned a device number. A
device number is required for data acquisition. The DAQ driver that we have
used automatically picks the device number of the connected device. In this
section, instead of DAQ Assistant we will use another block for data acquisition.
Therefore, we will need to specify the device manually. This can be done by
using the device block in front panel.

iv. In the front panel, right click to open controls palette. Go to Modern >> I/O >>
DAQmx Name Controls >> Device. Place a device block in your VI and connect
the “device name” block to “dev” input of encoder config VI.

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 v. Run the VI and rotate the motor with your hand. The position should change.

4.4. Benefits of DC motor data acquisition

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In the previous labs we created models of the DC motor. In the lab on time response of
systems, we used (or will use) these models to find the time response of the motor to
various inputs. The advantage of DC motor data acquisition is that we can apply various
signals to the actual hardware and see its response. The obtained response of the actual
hardware can be compared with the one obtained from the model to verify whether the
model is correct or not. We will do this exercise in the lab on model verification.

Another advantage of data acquisition is that we will be can implement the controller on
a computer and use it with the actual hardware. We will do this activity in later labs.

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EE-379: Control Systems, Lab 4 Page 19
Exercise 1: A simple test of our data acquisition VI

We have created a VI for data acquisition. However, we haven’t tested if the signals that
are being generated are of the correct value or not. Similarly, we haven’t tested if the
acquired signals are of the correct value or not.

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Stop the VI. Adjust the voltage input to zero volts. Run the VI. Rotate the motor by
approximately 90 degrees. See whether the VI shows the same value. Repeat this for
various other angles like 180, 360, -90 and -180 degrees etc.

90 Degrees:

180 degrees:

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360 degrees:

-90 degree:

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-180 degree:

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Attach a small marker to one side of the rotating disc attached with the motor. Use a
small piece of white tape or something similar. Run the VI and apply a small voltage so
that the motor is rotating at around 30 to 60 RPM according to your front panel
indicators. Now using a stop watch or time and by looking at the motor itself, try to count
how many rotations the motor is making. It should match with the one shown in your
front panel.

OBSERVATION:
In our hardware setup, it is difficult to measure the applied voltage. So we will be unable
to verify the voltage generation part of the data acquisition directly. However, we can tell
you that the motor speed is approximately 158 rads/sec when a voltage of 5 volts is
applied. Apply 5 volts to the motor and verify if this really is the case.

Motor Speed at 5V:

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Exercise 2: Data Acquisition for Inverted Pendulum

The figure below shows which channels of the NI ELVIS board are used by the Inverted
Pendulum and for what signal.

i. Analog output channel AO#0 is used to generate the voltage to be applied to the
motor.
ii. Analog input channel AI#0 is used to acquire the armature current of the motor.
iii. Digital input channel DI#0 is connected to the Motor encoder 0 and used to
determine the position of the Motor Arm. iv. Digital input channel DI#1 is
connected to the encoder 1 and used to determine the position of the Pendulum
Link.
v. Analog input channel AI#4 is used to acquire the speed of the motor.

Note: You can use Pendulum_Position.vi present on the desktop of your computer

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With this handout you will also be provided another document “QNET User
Manual.pdf”. Read section 5 of this document to get more details of the Inverted
Pendulum.

Connect Rotary Inverted Pendlum system to your PC using same procedure you used to
connect the DC Motor System and Create a VI which:
• Selects device number
• Applies Voltage to the Pendulum’s Motor
• Measures Arm Angle in Degree and rad/sec
• Measures Link Angle in Degree and rad/sec
• Measures Motor speed in RPM and rad/sec

Your VI should look similar to the VI shown in the figure below:

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Simulation:

Front Panel:

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Pendulum Motion:

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Conclusion:

This laboratory session provided instruction on data acquisition, focusing on utilizing

LabVIEW with NI ELVIS. Through hands-on experiments with the QNET DC motor
and Inverted Pendulum, we grasped the fundamentals. Data acquisition was explained as
the procedure of sampling tangible signals from the physical world and transforming
them into digital data, enabling computer manipulation.

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