Routing with signal modifiers in a measurement system

Abstract

System and method for programmatically determining routing with signal modifications in a measurement system to perform a measurement task. Information is received specifying a route from a source terminal to a destination terminal in the measurement system, including signal modification requirements and a graph of possible routes in the measurement system. A current signal modification of the route is determined and used with the signal modification requirements to determine desired changes in the signal modification of the route. The legs of the route are walked in the graph, and one or more legs are replaced with respective alternative legs, each of which includes at least a portion of the desired changes in the signal modification, thereby generating a modified route which satisfies the signal modification requirements for the route, where the modified route is usable to route signals in performing the measurement task. The modified route is then stored.

Description

CONTINUATION DATA[0001] This application is a Continuation In Part (CIP) of U.S. application Ser. No. 10 / 008,792 titled "Measurement System Software Architecture for Easily Creating High-Performance Measurement Applications" filed Nov. 13, 2001, whose inventors were Geoffrey Schmit, Brent Schwan, Jonathan Brumley, Thomas A. Makowski and Christopher T. Bartz, which claims benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Application Serial No. 60 / 301,785 titled "Measurement System Software Architecture for Easily Creating High-Performance Measurement Applications" filed Jun. 29, 2001, whose inventors were Geoffrey Schmit, Brent Schwan, Jonathan Brumley, Thomas A. Makowski and Christopher T. Bartz.[0002] The present invention relates to the field of measurement and automation systems, and more particularly to a system and method for route sharing in a measurement system.DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART[0003] Scientists and engineers often use measurement or automation systems to perform a variety of ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Furthermore, when multiple devices are included in the measurement system, additional inter-device routing must be determined and specified, which may complicate the routing determination process substantially.

Therefore, a user may need to carefully analyze each prospective route to determine which is most suitable for the task, an effort which may be tedious and error prone.

However, prior art approaches generally do not facilitate the configuration of multiple signal modifiers between the source and destination, which may result in underutilization of hardware resources.

A traditional Application Programming Interface (API) would be limited to configuring only one of the inverters between the source and destination, resulting in underutilization of the hardware.

Additionally, traditional APIs do not account for the effect of multiple inverters on a signal.

Since traditional API's only evaluate a route's source and destination, they cannot program the components of the route with much flexibility.

Furthermore, routing across devices using a traditional API is generally only achievable by breaking up a multi-device route into two or more component routes.

In prior art systems, routes defined or managed at the level of source / destination terminal pairs cannot easily share hardware resources.

There are a number of drawbacks to this method of presentation.

This requires time and effort at the expense of documentation and software development tasks.

Additionally, because the table is built by hand, the table is prone to mistakes.

Second, when a device is modified or functionality is added, the routability table may need to be amended, which increases the likelihood for a number of errors.

Additionally, any pre-existing documentation will not be updated because once paper documentation is printed, it is not changeable.

Device families also present a problem for this approach, in that while devices in a family are normally exactly the same in most respects, they often differ slightly in terms of routability.

Thus, maintaining synchrony and consistency between the various routability tables may be problematic.

These signal modifications are constraints for the current route determination, in that modifying them would interfere with the pre-existing route.

Thus, the signal modifications which were set in a prior route determination may not be changed to meet the signal modification requirements for the route.

A determination may be made as to whether the modified route satisfies the signal modification requirements for the route, and if the modified route does not satisfy the signal modification requirements for the route, an error message may be generated.

If there are no more legs to process, and the signal modification requirements have not been satisfied, then an error message may be generated, e.g., the route may fail.

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