VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTATION

TOPIC: VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTATION AND ITS APPLICATION IN

POWER ENGINEERING LAB.

BY: P.RAVI CHANDRA AND M.N.V. SWATHI

4/4 B.TECH, E I E, LAKI REDDY BALI REDDY COLLEGE OF
ENGINEERING, MYLAVARAM, KRISHNA DT.
pravi_aries@yahoo.com

TO: AURORA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING,

ABSTRACT
Every parameter in the industry or laboratory needs measurement. For measuring
those quantities dedicated instruments are more often used. These instruments provide
very accurate measurement and are reliable. But they cannot be customized. They are
very much useful in industries but they cannot meet the requirements of scientists and
research workers. A virtual instrument overcomes the drawbacks of traditional
instruments.
Virtual instruments are fueled by the rapid advancement of the chip technology
and in PC. Virtual instruments represent a fundamental shift from traditional hardwarecentered instrumentation system to software-centered systems that exploit the computing
power, productivity, display and connectivity capabilities of popular desktop computers
and workstations. Virtual instruments are real instruments, real world data is collected,
recorded and displayed, it just uses the data acquisition capabilities, processing, storage
and other capabilities of a computer.
This paper explains the main concept of virtual instrumentation and its
application in power engineering lab.

VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTATION AND ITS APPLICATION IN

POWER ENGINEERING LAB
BY: P.RAVI CHANDRA AND M.N.V.SWATHI
4/4 B.TECH, E I E, LBRCE.

INTRODUCTION:
In industries we find many parameters to be controlled, and many
electronic instruments are used to control these parameters. All these instruments are dedicated
to measure or control those parameters only. They entirely differ from one another but they
have one thing in common, they all are box shaped and has some controls and knobs on them.
the Stand-alone electronic instruments are very powerful, expensive and designed to perform
one or more specific tasks defined by the vendor. The user cannot extend or customize them.
The knobs and buttons, built-in circuitry and the functions available to the user, all of these are
specific to the nature of the instrument. In addition, special technology and costly components
must be developed to build these instruments.
Widespread adoption of the PC over the past twenty years has given rise to a
new way for scientists and engineers to measure and automate the world around them. One
major development resulting from the advancement of the PC is the concept of virtual
instrumentation. A virtual instrument consists of an industry-standard computer or workstation
equipped with off-the-shelf application software, cost effective hardware, which together
performs the function of traditional instruments. Today virtual instrumentation is used by
engineers and scientists for faster application development, higher quality products at lower
costs.
Virtual instruments represent a fundamental shift from traditional hardwarecentered instrumentation systems towards software-centered systems that exploit the
computing power, productivity, display and connectivity capabilities of popular desktop
computers and workstations. Even if PC and IC technologies experienced a good growth, it is
the software that makes a reality of building virtual instruments.

CONCEPT OF VIRTUAL INSTRUMENT:

Usually instrumentation manufactures provide specific functions to given
architecture and fixed interfaces for measuring devices, and thus limit the application domain
of these devices. In actual use much time is required for adjusting the measuring range and for
saving and documenting the results. The advent of microprocessors in the measurement and
instrumentation fields produced rapid modifications of measuring device technology, soon
followed by the appearance of computer based measurement techniques. These techniques
consists of three parts as shown in fig-1, acquisition of measurement data, conditioning and
processing of analysis of measurement signals and presentation of data.

The concept of virtual instrument is frequently used in industrial

measurement practice, but not always with precisely the same meaning. In one view virtual
instruments are based on standard computers and represent systems for storage, processing and
presentation of measurement data. In another view, a virtual instrument is computer equipped
with software for a variety of uses including drivers for various peripherals, as well as A to D
and D to A converters, representing an alternative to extensive conventional instruments with
analog displays and electronics. Acquisition of data by a computer can be achieved in various
ways and for this reason the understanding of architecture of the measuring instrument
becomes important.

A virtual instrument can be defined as an integration of sensors by a PC

equipped with specific DAC hardware and software to permit measurement data acquisition,
processing and display. Virtual instruments are a means of integration of the display, control
and centralization of complex measurement systems. Industrial instrumentation applications
however require high rates, long distances and multi vendor instrument connectivity based on
open industrial network protocols. In order to construct a virtual instrument it is necessary to
combine the hardware and software elements which should perform data acquisition and
control, data processing and data presentation in a different way to take maximum advantage of
the PC, as shown in fig-2. Virtual instrumentation can use the serial communication based on
RS-232 standard or the parallel communication based on GPIB standard, PC bus or VXI bus.

BASIC COMPONENTS OF VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTATION:

The basic components of all virtual instruments include a computer and a
display, the virtual instrument software, bus structure and instrument hardware.
COMPUTER AND DISPLAY: these are the heart of VI systems .these systems are typically
based on a personal computer with a high resolution monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. Rapid
technological advancements of PC technology have greatly enhanced VI. Moving from DOS to
WINDOWS gave the PC users GUI. The advances in processor performance supplied the
power needed to bring the new applications with in the scope of VI.
SOFTWARE: if the computer is the heart of virtual instrument the software is their Brian. the
software uniquely defines the functionality and personality of VI systems. This can be divided
into several levels.

REGISTER LEVEL SOFTWARE: it requires the knowledge of inner registers structure of the
device for entering the bit combination taken from instruction manual in order to program
measurement functions of the device. It is the hardest way in programming and is strongly
hardware dependent.
DRIVER LEVEL SOFTWARE: it is one of the most important components in measurement
systems. They perform the actual communication and control of the instrument hardware in the
system. They provide a medium level easy-to-use programming model that enables complete
access to complex measurements capabilities of the instruments.
HIGH LEVEL TOOL SOFTWARE: currently the most popular way of programming is based
on high level tool software. With easy-to-use integrated development tools, design engineers
can quickly create, configure and display the measurements in a user friendly form, during
product design and verification. The most popular tools are: LabVIEW, Lab Windows, HP
VEE, Test Point, and Measurement Studio.

APPLICATION

OF

VI

IN

POWER

ENGINEERING

LABORATORY
In traditional power engineering labs the data is collected using traditional
analog voltmeters, ammeters, watt meters, multimeters and oscilloscopes and we spend a lot of
time in connecting the standard hardware instrumentation by which we can only measure rms
voltage, current and real power. the quantities such as reactive power and phase angle are
calculated on paper .since these quantities are not measured at real time we cannot observe the
effect on these quantities due to changes in other parameters .if the use of VI we can see the
real time effects of an experimental variable on the real power, reactive power and phasor
quantities and the spectral representation of ac signals. For example we can immediately see
the result of loading a motor, changing a supply voltage or changing a connection.

LAB CAPABILITIES:
Each computer is equipped with a DAQ board. The DAQ card acquires
data from any of the channels and passes it to LABVIEW. A prime mover is placed at each
station, which enables to mechanically drive generators and to load motors. The prime mover
has analog speed and torque outputs which are directly connected to DAQ card. The

combination of digital acquisition, computer processing and display is required to as Virtual

Instrumentation.
It is important to emphasize that virtual instruments are real instruments: no
simulation is involved. Real world data is collected, processed and displayed.
SINGLE AND THREE PHASE TRANSFORMERS:
To study the characteristics of single phase transformer, voltage is applied to
the primary of a single phase two winding transformer. Using a current and a voltage channel,
the input current and voltage are measured. The obtained characteristics are as shown in the
fig-1. a third and odd harmonics occur . Fig-2 shows the hysteresis curve, which is obtained by
displaying core flux as a function of excitation current.

To study the presence of harmonics in a three phase Y-Y transformer and the
effect grounding the neutral has on the harmonics, three single phase transformers are
connected in a Y-Y connection as shown in fig-2. by using the current and voltage waveforms
VI can compute the full spectra of each. Fourier analysis is performed on each of the acquired
waveforms in order to obtain different frequency components.
The ability to study the basic waveforms does not require virtual
instrumentation. This is also possible by using C R O. But by using we cannot get the phasor
diagrams. Using the current and voltage waveforms, the 50Hz component is extracted and the
results can be displayed on a polar plot as a phasor diagram as shown in the figure-4.

DC GENERATOR CHARACTERSTICS
By using VI we can find the characteristics of a DC generator and find the
magnetization curves as shown in fig-6. In the figure different DC generators characteristics
are shown, which depicts a set of three graphs of load voltage versus armature current. The top
most curves represent a separately excited Dc generator. The centre curve represents a
cumulative compound long shunt dc generator and third curve represents self excited dc
generator. The separately excited dc generator has grouping characteristics, self excited shunt
dc generator has a reduction terminal voltage as shown in the figure. The cumulative
compound dc generator has both these characteristics.

Similarly we can obtain the graphs of synchronous motors and

induction motors and also to any electrical machinery
CONCLUSION:
Virtual instrumentation is fueled by ever advancing computer technology
and it offers the power of creating and defining someones own system based on an open frame
work. The combination of computer performance, graphical software, and modular
instrumentation has led to the emergence of virtual instruments, which are substantially differ
physical ancestors. Virtual instruments are manifested in different forms ranging from
graphical instrument panels to complete instrument systems. Modular instrumentation building
blocks are becoming more prevalent in the industry and are allowing users to develop
capabilities unattainable using traditional instrument architectures. Despite these changes
however, these measurement paradigm remains unaltered. This might be the proper platform
for the new development.

REFERENCES