NI & SENSORS PLUG&PLAY PROGRAM MEMBERS RESPOND TO INDUSTRY NEED FOR EASIER SENSOR MEASUREMENTS

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NI & SENSORS PLUG&PLAY PROGRAM MEMBERS RESPOND TO INDUSTRY NEED FOR EASIER SENSOR MEASUREMENTS
10 October 2005 - National Instruments Corporation (UK)

National Instruments and leading sensor manufacturers participating in the Sensors Plug&Play Program continue to develop and release innovative, timesaving data acquisition products that support transducer electronic data sheet smart sensors. During the last 18 months, this collaboration with vendors such as Honeywell-Lebow Products Inc., Watlow and PCB Piezotronics has delivered more than 3,200 TEDS sensors and measurement systems that work with the IEEE 1451.4 standard.

The standard specifies technology that simplifies system setup and improves sensor accuracy by digitally storing sensor parameters on an embedded EEPROM chip.

"Since joining the Sensors Plug&Play Program, we now install TEDS in 90 percent of our products," said Kerby Hull, regional sales manager with Honeywell-Lebow Products Inc., a leading manufacturer of torque sensing and force measurement equipment. "We have shipped 3,000 sensors with TEDS installed and 3,500 sensors with Virtual TEDS, a trend that reflects the wider acceptance of smart TEDS sensors. We believe this growth is a direct result of the significant efficiency gains that engineers and scientists achieve by combining easy-to-use, timesaving plug-and-play sensors with high-quality data acquisition hardware."

Engineers and scientists can see significant increase in productivity and fewer data entry errors by integrating TEDS sensors into their applications. TEDS-compatible hardware automatically read information engineers and scientists once had to enter by hand, including sensor-specific scaling and calibration parameters as well as vendor information, directly from the sensor. National Instruments LabVIEW software was the first general-purpose application software to fully support the IEEE 1451.4 standard. By using the free TEDS library for the LabVIEW environment, more than 30 sensor vendors offering a broad range of analog sensors now program their smart TEDS sensors in the same development environment, creating a common platform for the implementation of the standard.

Because sensors products created by Sensors Plug&Play Program members offer tight integration with NI LabVIEW application development software, engineers and scientists not only simplify their hardware setup with TEDS but also streamline their software development. Engineers using legacy sensors can take advantage of smart sensors by downloading free "Virtual TEDS" files for use with LabVIEW software from an online library located at www.ni.com/sensors and program their smart TEDS sensors in a single development environment.

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About: National Instruments Corporation (UK)
National Instruments is a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation – a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Utilising the PC and its related technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs through easy-to-integrate software, such as the NI LabVIEW graphical development environment, and modular hardware, such as PXI modules for data acquisition, instrument control and machine vision. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 3,100 employees and direct operations in 41 countries. In 2003, the company sold products to more than 25,000 companies in 90 countries. For the past five years, FORTUNE magazine named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.

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