Shaft Power Measurement Of IC Engine And Its Virtual Instrumentation System Development Based On LabVIEW

In traditional measuring systems, some sensors fixed on the rotative part of the engine are needed when measuring the power or rotative speed of the engine. Using these sensors, the preparation work takes much time before measuring and the cost of them are much high. Meanwhile, the system measuring accuracy will be affected.Virtual Instrumentation (VI) is becoming a popular tool in measurement, test and automation as a result of rapid development of computer technology. And data acquisition is one of the principal functions of virtual instruments, and also the first step in all tests and measurement tasks. As the development tool for virtual instruments, LabVIEW is featured with strong software support to DAQ products, so it is easier and more convenient to realize data acquisition in LabVIEW.LabVIEW is mainly applied in the fields of instrument control, signal collection, data analysis. Its developing environment is based on graph programme language. The largest differerce between LabVIEW and the traditional languages, such as C, Basic, Java, is that the traditional programme languages using text language but LabVIEW using graph. LabVIEW is a special software developing tool and design platform for virtual instrument design.The collection and analysis system for IC Engine power signals based on LabVIEW is composed by PC, Laser, DAQPad-6070E , CB-68LP connecting board. The system can realize real-time collect, selective save, waveform print and long-distant promulgate in the network. The system software can be used in different fields for IC Engine power measurement, and it offers the system a lot of merits, such as non-contact, friendly user interface, low cost of development, short development period, and flexible functional-extension, etc.