2012 LabVIEW Tools Network Awards Recap

[Jeff M]

The 2012 LabVIEW Tools Network Awards, held August 7th during NIWeek, recognized the top achievements from the NI ecosystem:

New Silver Members

The following partners have achieved Silver level in the Compatible with LabVIEW program. 

• CalcExpress by Konstantin Shifershteyn
• ModBus Toolkit, ViBox XControls, ViBox Probes by SAPHIR
• Kuka Robotics Library by ImagingLab
• UI Tools by LAVA

New Gold Members

The following partners have achieved Gold level in Compatible with LabVIEW program.

• ModalVIEW by ABSignal
• FlexStand Operator Interface by CIM

Cloud and Mobile Innovation Award:

Maintainable Test by Maintainable Software

This software-as-a-service product is used in electronics manufacturing test, for cloud-based data management with LabVIEW, TestStand, and DIAdem.   Their software is used by customers such as Coulomb Technologies, a leader in electric vehicle chargers.  In addition, the Maintainable Software has deep expertise in tools used to develop cloud infrastructure, and have published a technical book on the subject.  Their product works on the latest tablet devices such as Apple iPads.

Software Engineering Innovation Award:

Graphical Object Oriented Programming (GOOP) Development Suite by Symbio

Over the last decade, Symbio has done ground-breaking work in bringing Object-Oriented programming and UML capabilities to LabVIEW.   The product delivers time-savings to software architects by integrating directly within the LabVIEW project environment, and the tools are used by design teams with as many as 40 developers working simultaneously on large applications in LabVIEW.

Big Data Innovation Award:

CURE by Neural ID

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, the manufacturing sector can reduce total costs by 50 percent with a better understanding of data.  Cure by Neural ID provides a LabVIEW toolkit in the form of a pattern recognition engine for unstructured data.  When combined with LabVIEW’s inherent parallelism and ability to run on high-end multicore processors and FPGAs, this toolkit is well-suited for big data problems.   It also compliments other NI software tools like DIAdem, which handle postprocessing for large datasets.  Recently this product has been used by NASA, for a Big Data problem that involves anomaly detection in critical aerospace components.  In addition, it’s algorithms have been deployed across the United States in the ecoATM electronics recycling kiosk, which was named a Popular Science Top 100 innovation.

Test Product of the Year:

INERTIA by Wineman Technology Inc.

INERTIA is a powerful test automation software specifically designed for quickly and efficiently implementing real-time control and test applications. This software add-on for NI VeriStand provides a seamless, integrated control solution for test cell applications such as dynamometer and servo-hydraulic test systems.  A customer that uses this technology is Ford Motor Company, who recently created a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test system to simulate, control, and monitor passenger vehicle fuel cells.

Prognostics Innovation Award:

Watchdog Agent Toolkit by the Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS)

Prognostics is an important field of study because one of the biggest expenses of large machines is maintenance. The Watchdog Agent Toolkit delivers a set of algorithms in LabVIEW, that allows engineers to predict machine failure and fully understand the health of a machine, in order to reduce costs. It's been used by industrial tool companies such as Hywin to improve their tooling machines and reduce costs.  In addition, the work through the IMS Center exemplifies the positive outcomes of university and industry collaboration.  IMS Center has formed partnerships with over 30 organizations to including National Instruments, Boeing, GE, and Honeywell, to drive collaboration and envision the future of maintenance.

Structural Dynamics Innovation Award:

ModalVIEW by ABSignal

ModalVIEW is a product that extends LabVIEW and NI hardware technology into the area of structural dynamics.  It was designed to help engineers easily acquire sound or vibration signals from a running machine, and obtain both the static and dynamic loading of a structure by using data acquisition hardware.  It’s intuitive interface allows you to animate the response of a structure and show you the structure's vibration behavior at once.  It’s been used to analyze some of the world’s largest structures, including the Donghai Bridge in China. 

Vision Software Innovation Award:   

3D Vision Library by ImagingLab

The 3D Vision Library from ImagingLab extends the capabilities of NI hardware and software to support 3D vision.  According to industry vision expert Markus Tarin, 3D vision represents one of the biggest advancements in vision applications over the past decade.  Once considered too difficult for many machine vision applications, 3D vision is now being deployed into high-volume manufacturing applications in areas like automotive and electronics manufacturing.

Embedded Control and Monitoring Product of the Year: 

ELCOM Network Analyzer

ELCOM was faced with the challenge of building a professional instrument fully compliant with the international standards, that could be used for measurement and data evaluation in power distribution grids.  To address this challenge, they used NI graphical system design tools and the modular CompactRIO platform to achieve unique flexibility of a power quality analyzer, while still meeting the tight time to market criteria.

Congratulations to this year's winners.  To learn more, or download one of these products, visit the LabVIEW Tools Network.