Study On Requirement-based Automatic Virtual Instrument Software Generation

The study onVirtual Instrument (VI) has become an important trend in thefield of scientific instrument research. The main features of Virtual Instrumentare: first, users can define the functions of instruments themselves;second,software is instrument, the former feature is the core concept of virtualinstrument and the latter one is the kernel of VI. When the necessaryinstrumental hardwares are given,the key point of constructing and using theVI lies on the application of software. Although there are many companieshome and abroad have already provided the graphic programmingenvironment for VI, still certain defects exist and also the requirement foruser's professional knowledge during the process which make it in great needof finding another new software development mode in VI. This dissertation isbased on the research of scientific instrument study project granted by ChinaNational Nature Science Foundation, Jilin province Science and TechnologyOffice and also the Jilin University Science and Technology InnovationFoundation. It presents the theoretical foundation of software automaticgeneration technology,the framework of this software automatic generationsystem,and then further investigates various modes of this system. Based onthose studies mentioned above,a VI software development environmentSAGS was worked out to testify the feasibility of software automaticgeneration.The main contents of this dissertation can be summarized in thefollowing aspects:1. Presenting the theoretical foundation of software automatic generationtechnology. This dissertation is based on the thought that the softwaregeneration is driven by the requirement of the user and from three aspects,it expounds this software automatic generation-theory ofrequirement-driven,theory of software automatic generation and itsprinciple and data stream. In order to achieve the software automaticgeneration,the functions of VI are being modularized, so the dissertationalso discusses the inter-relationship between the modules and problem ofdata compatibility which decides the cooperation between the modules.Detailed contents about those three ways of automatic softwaregeneration are included in it as well.2. Working on the mechanism of software automatic generation system.Raising the idea of providing new data channel to satisfy the need of datainter-change and putting forward the new two-dimension chain memoryallocation and the control algorithm to meet the request of complex datastructural distribution and management, and finally realizing the displayof data and supervision of its life circle. After the research on memorymechanism has been done , further focus is cast on themessage-mechanism both between the modules and inside them. Messagemechanism and memory distribution mechanism cooperates to consist thewhole operation mechanism of the software automatic generation system.3. Advancing the ways of realizing software automatic generation.Discussing the related contents of the first way of automaticconnectionways and presenting the generation mechanism under orderlyand disorderly condition. In the orderly part, expounding the generationand reasoning process of module match tree, describing the reasoningand connection process of the match between the modules which aims togenerate the target software. In the disorderly part, the decision-makingalgorithm of regulating data flow between the modules and the procedureof generating the software are given.4. Presenting another mode of the software automatic generation which isbased on data stream analysis. Pointing out the application field of thisdata stream analysis technology,its algorithm and the realization of thedata-analysis instrument design.5. Presenting the third mode of the software automatic generation which isbased on test requirement and also discusses its related contents, pointingout the application fields of this data stream analysis technology,itsalgorithm and the realization of the data-analysis instrument design.6. Designing the whole framework of the soft automatic generation systemwhich includes the all the module elements of this SAGS. Dividing andclassifying the modules into groups according to the parts of VI-dataacquisition,data analysis,data saving and data display. The three differentgeneration modes mentioned above are tested separately.7. Presenting the concept of three-layer network instrument and designingthe management and organization modes for dispersed resource, alsodiscussing the way that how those resources response to the connectionand manage it. Based on the automatic generation system,the hard waresorganized in the network could be used to build up a VI Lab,realizing thetask of long distance hardware share, and we can further apply SAGS toE-learning.To compare with the stream graphic VI software development system,this dissertation does present new design thoughts and modes of the softwareautomatic generation which embody in the following respects:1. Changing the role that the user played in the software generation and themode of design: the prevailing development system of graphic VIsoftware tend to requirement some professional knowledge from the user,requiring them to know the working principle of VI its internal structureand also design the complex connection,do the debugging step by step.While the requirement-driven software automatic generation fullyconsiders the user's convenience,which does not require the professionalknowledge. As long as the function requirement of the software is given,the software could be generated by resolve the requirement.2. Making some tentative exploration on the automatic generation of VI: thisresearch begins with the therotical foundation of software automaticgeneration, its related theory and also includes the research on thegenerationaspect. The dissertation focuses on the electronic measurementand test field and also tests the software automatic generation feasibility.3. Making use of the relationship between the modes to describe thesoftware functiosn and the hardware module involved in VI. Thisdissertation summarizes the features of software and hardware module ofVI under the graphic development environment,and finally gains thesoftware and hardware module of high-integration. The mode of datasteam between modules and the message sending mechanism are used torealize the module data interchange and share.4. Advancing the concept of data compatibility and using the modematching to decide the data steam matching relationship between themodules. This dissertation uses the concept of data compatibility todescribe the data exchange and uses the module matching relation tree todepict the relationship between modules, realizing the proper dataanalysis and circulation between the modules. Creatively combining theprinciple of software automatic generation and relationship transferbetween the modules which paves the theoretical foundation for thissoftware automatic generation.5. Aim at different user's various using habit,this dissertation presents threeways of requirement description which are automatic connection,datastream resolve and text-based requirement resolve. Automatic connectionis fit for uses that are familiar with way that icon represent the function.By dragging the counterpart of the icons to the proper place,thefunctional requirement description of the software is done. Text-basedrequirement resolve which uses the natural language to describe thefunction is for the users who prefer the text programming and it cangenerate the software by describing the function of software. While thefunctional requirement mode of data stream revolve is quite similar to theautomatic connection, the only difference is the order of customizedexecution.6. In order to satisfy the data requirement of software automatic generationThe dissertation put forward the mechanism of memoryallocation,blocking and dividing the memory,and also its managementmechanism. Establishing a public area which called data channel for thedata exchange among different functional modules. Setting up anotherpublic data area for the memory requirement application of thosefunctional modules and using the memory allocation and managementstrategy of the two-dimension chain chart to control the public data area,in order to satisfy the allocation and management of various basic datatype and complex array structure and achieve the generation of the dataand control of the life circle.7. Establishing the cooperation mechanism of data stream and information.The VI graphic development software driven by the pure data streamcould not always be compatible with operating system based oninformation mechanism. In order to solve this problem, this dissertationpresents information driven data stream operation system to realize thedispatch and running regulation of information between and inside themodules. This mode could guarantee the valid resolve operation of SAGSfrom the function completeness and event instant response aspect,responding the user's requirement in time.8. Effective organization of the dispersed resources. Advancing the conceptof three-layer network instrument, designing the management andorganization of dispersed resources based on the module of three-layernetwork instrument and discussing the connection response and itsmanagement of dispersed resources. The resource management softwareis developed as the management layer of the three-layer networkinstrument, the dispersed hardware resources as the service layer and theSAGS as the application layer. For the individual hardware,SAGS,management layer and hardware resources compose a three-layer networkinstrument. For one single user,what he or she faces are varied dispersedhard resources and those three-layer instrument . By resourcemanagement software, the dispersed resources could be organizedeffectively and the resources could be made full use by the long distanceshare.The research on industrial software automatic generation is quite a newresearch field. This dissertation has made some tentative approaches to thesoftware automatic generation in the field of electronic measurement and test.Some theoretical outcome has been achieved which could serve as thetheoretical foundation of the similar software research and development inmany other fields.