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Move A Little, See A Lot
Proven tips from the trenches
By Design News Staff -- Design News, March 15, 2004
When engineers think of computer-based measurements, voltage and current come to mind. Some tests, though, also involve moving and viewing a device under test. Think of positioning a cell phone to inspect its display during final test. Integrating motion and vision operations into a test system can challenge developers.
In theory, software drivers for servo motors and solid-state cameras should integrate easily into test development software. But if test software was written in language A, and drivers only exist for language B, developers may have difficulty adding motion and vision capabilities to an existing system. Back to the drawing board.
Although you can't anticipate every new need, vision and motion show up more and more frequently in test systems. So, before you settle on a test-development environment or language, investigate how well it can later accommodate vision and motion hardware and software.
Also, ensure that your test application can easily handle the data formats required by motion control and vision equipment. You shouldn't have to worry about swapping bytes or inverting bits to get vision software and motor control drivers working within a test application.
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