PXI-based High-Performance Versatile Instrumentation and Motion Control System for Wind Tunnel Applications

This paper presents the implementation aspects of a PXI-based high-performance versatile instrumentation and motion control system configured for wind tunnel applications at National Wind Tunnel Facility (NWTF), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. The system has been implemented using virtual instrumentation technique and PXI architecture which enhance the productivity and lower the cost through easy-to-integrate LabVIEW software and PXI modular hardware. This kind of system architecture also provides user-defined input/output (I/O) functionality with the flexibility to use multiple high-performance measurement and control devices in a single system. However, the system presented in this paper has been configured for wind tunnel test applications but can also be easily configured to perform other measurement and control functions for bio-medical, process control, robotics and industrial applications. The major applications of the system at NWTF-IIT Kanpur include the measurement of wind tunnel speed, test section and ambient temperature, atmospheric humidity and pressure, model pitch and roll angles, multi-channel force and pressure on the models during wind tunnel testing and multi-axis motion control for automated wind tunnel test applications.