NI Powers Berkeley Embedded Systems Laboratory for EECS

National Instruments has partnered with University of California, Berkeley's College of Engineering to launch the NI Embedded Systems Laboratory on the UC Berkeley campus. The lab will be used for teaching and research in the area of graphical system design for all electrical engineering and computer sciences graduate students and upper division undergraduates, as well as for researchers from other departments.

"The vision for the creation of the NI Embedded Systems Laboratory was developed by professor and department chair Dr. Edward Lee, whose research interests focus on the design, modeling and simulation of embedded, real-time computational systems," said Ferenc Kovac, EECS lab manager at UC Berkeley. "Also, the lab would not be possible without the direct involvement of NI in our instructional and research program. With the NI Embedded Systems Laboratory, we are taking engineering education to the next level by giving students the tools to learn the graphical system design approach in a project-based environment."

The system will provide an open environment in which students can design and prototype their projects and explore "all aspects of embedded systems design, from core concepts such as models of computation, concurrency, and tool-supported design methodologies to sensors and actuators, data acquisition, interfacing, and real-world applications, such as mechatronics, robotics and controls systems," according to NI.

The lab includes 12 workstations, four of which offer NI PXI chassis with modular instrumentation including arbitrary waveform generators, digitizers, multimeters, power supplies, and USB data acquisition hardware, according to NI. The lab also includes NI's CompactRIO programmable automation controllers, the LabVIEW graphical development environment, and LabVIEW Real-Time, a tool that combines LabVIEW with embedded technologies.

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About the Author

David Nagel is the former editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal, STEAM Universe, and Spaces4Learning. A 30-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art, marketing, media, and business publications.

He can be reached at [email protected]. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrnagel/ .


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