Control & Instrumentation Software

Software is becoming an increasingly important part of control, test and monitoring stations removing much of the burden of the test engineer. We have considerable experience in many different types of application ranging from laboratory scale research rigs to production facilities. SCITEK has delivered systems for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) testing, manufacturing facilities monitoring, multi-rig combustion research facilities, motion control for legacy traverses and many others.

In addition to writing software for new applications we also provide a service for modifying, updating and improving your existing code for your new requirements.

Our development platform of choice is LabVIEW from National Instruments. LabVIEW is a language that was specifically designed for data acquisition and control, data analysis and presentation and it significantly reduces the time taken to develop these types of application. The result is that using LabVIEW rather than languages such as C/C++ saves you money. The platform is becoming the industry standard for test and measurement and supports a huge range of hardware from many manufacturers, so you are not restricted to National Instruments' own hardware products (though, where appropriate,  we recommend those also).

While LabVIEW makes it relatively easy for the novice to get immediate results from equipment, real-world application are complex. Reliable, robust systems require knowledge and experience of both hardware and software. We have that knowledge and experience and will be happy to work with you to design and create your control and instrumentation systems in the minimum time, first time. We also provide a service to debug, fix and improve your existing, troublesome applications that were created by developers who were learning the hard way that large LabVIEW projects require careful planning and skilful execution.

For applications that must be extremely reliable and/or run unattended for long periods of time, or require deterministic control loops, we use LabVIEW Real-Time. LabVIEW code executes on an independent target with a real-time operating system (RTOS) for deterministic, reliable performance.  The user interface may be via a web browser or a further program written for a PC based system.  Should the system running the user interface fail, the LabVIEW RT system will continue to run without the UI and can, if required, be programmed to take another action such as putting the system into a safe "holding" mode  or controlled shutdown.

Send your enquiries/comments to enquiries@scitekconsultants.co.uk

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