Real-time Control System For Distributed Instrument

In recent years, network based Automatic Test System has taken place of traditional measurement model and been wildly implemented in numerous fields, such as industry field measurement, satellite remote control and remote diagnose. ATS consists of three main parts: remote instruments control, distributed data analysis and information management.The instrument in ATS is not only the simple physical hardware, but also the virtual instrument based on PC, which becomes more intelligent and more dependent on software and network. To such trends, it is probable to implement the real-time control of distant instruments using the software and network technology and make feasible solution to share the physical instruments resource in the Internet. The real-time control system of distributed instruments, one of the key points in the ATS, intends to share the special instruments without the limitation of time and location, and improves the utilization ratio of data and hardware.The Distributed Instruments Control System doses not simply connect all the instruments together, but, more importantly, provide a management platform for the network devices and optimize the allocation of instrument resource. The paper emphasizes on the object-oriented description of the distributed instruments, and creates a layered model of network devices control system. In the system, the information of the devices is published to the Internet as a service node.Based on Active Directory and Windows Management Instrument, the paper designs the real-time control platform of the distributed instruments in detail and validates its feasibility and reasonability. In the meantime, further research related to load balancing of instrument resource and the system security is discussed. The article provides several solutions to these problems.At last, PCI-6024E of National Instruments is selected as physical instrument in the paper to realize an example of the distributed instrument system. The user can access the DAQ board remotely without knowing its position, and operate the instrument in real-time.The author gives some advice and makes prospect for the system application as a conclusion.