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Keysight Instrument Drivers

Test and measurement instruments are often  used in applications requiring automation and remote control.  Instrument drivers provide an abstraction layer simplifyin g the task and making it easy to incorporate the  measurements and data from instrume nts into the workflow  Keysight provides instrument drivers based on industry standards and modern programming languages  so you can take advantage of the measurement science and hardware in your  preferred environment.    

Most instruments will use  ASCII-based SCPI (Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments)  and  each instrument’s SCPI commands are well documented .  They are specific to  each instrument's family, range, model and firmware version .   The instrument driver encapsulates the SCPI commands  and  provides the abstraction layer  for reading and writing instrument settings and measurement data. Th i s provide s  a common framework so that  you  can  easily utilize different instruments without having to learn the lower level SCPI commands for each.      

In strument drivers provide :  

  • Ease of use in test automation  and  application development environments   

  • Interchangeability between instrument models or similar families of instruments due to the abstraction of instrument SCPI commands   

  • Built in simulation mode  for  test automation  and  code development without an instrument  

  • Common measurements of similar instrument families  to  reduce the learning curve  

  • I n-line documentation access to  API  methods and properties   

Keysight  provides  instrument drivers to reduce the time it takes to develop  and  maintain automated test system  software and  provides you with the tools to s t ay current  with rapidly evolving technology whether it is in software or  the   instrument  hardware .   For additional software  tools that simplify instrument control and to learn more about  our Connectivity Software, please click here .

 

Types of drivers in use today

 

image1IVI drivers


The IVI Foundation specifies industry standards for instrument drivers called Interchangeable Virtual Instrument (IVI) drivers. IVI drivers come in three distinct flavors: IVI.NET, IVI-COM and IVI-C. As the current industry standard, most new instruments include some or all these flavors of IVI drivers. The LXI standard also specifies that all LXI instruments must have an IVI driver.  

IVI drivers provide many advanced features, such as: instrument interchangeability without recompiling code, instrument simulation, and a common framework that allows for easy system integration.  

Specifications and more detailed information can be found at  www.ivifoundation.org   and this  specification document .  

For instructions on getting started with IVI drivers in your favorite application development environment (ADE), check out the IVI Getting Started Guide at  www.ivifoundation.org/resources/

 

IVI.NET drivers

IVI.NET is the IVI driver architecture standard that  has  a .NET API.  IVI.NET drivers present more flexibility with API data types, access to examining/modifying driver source, and clean handling of  Events .   IVI.NET drivers are distributed on Windows to users in the form of a .NET assembly.  

These drivers work best in standard object-oriented ADE’s that are optimized to use the  Windows  .NET Framework such as:  

      • Microsoft Visual Studio (using Visual Basic .NET Visual  C# .NET , Visual C++.NET )  

      • Keysight VEE  

      • National Instruments LabView  

For more details, refer to the “ Guide to Using IVi.Net Drivers with Visual C# and Visual Basic .NET ”  document  provided by the IVI Foundation.

 

IVI-COM drivers

IVI-COM is the IVI driver architecture standard that is based on Microsoft´s ubiquitous COM standard.  IVI-COM drivers work best in standard object-oriented ADE’s that support COM directly, or through some interoperability mechanism. These environments include:  

      • Keysight VEE

      • MathWorks MATLAB (requires a MATLAB instrument driver wrapper)

      • Visual Basic 6.0

      • Microsoft Visual Studio .Net (using Visual Basic, C/C++, Managed C++ or C#)

      • VBA environments (MS Office Excel, Word and etc…)

      • National Instruments LabVIEW

      • National Instrument LabWindows/CVI 

For more details, refer to the “ Your Guide to Using IVI with Visual C# and Visual Basic .NET ”  document   provided by the IVI Foundation.  

 

IVI-C drivers

IVI-C is the IVI driver architecture standard that is based on the  VXI plug&play  instrument driver specifications.  IVI-C drivers work well in development environments designed to access C-style libraries. These environments include:  

      • C/C++  

      • MathWorks MATLAB ( requires a MATLAB instrument driver wrapper )  

      • National Instruments LABVIEW  

      • National Instruments  LabWindows /CVI  

For more details, refer to the “ Your Guide to Using IVI with Visual C++ ”  document   provided by the IVI Foundation.  


More details about IVI drivers and the instrument classes it supports can be found here: " IVI Instrument Drivers Overview ".


image2Python instrument drivers

 

Python instrument drivers provide a Python API that can be used to create instrument control applications.  These drivers  allow you to automate Keysight instruments directly from  several  Python development environment s .   For example:  

Python  instrument drivers are supported on both Windows and certain Linux operating systems and thus are cross-platform. For more  details,  please  look  at this article: " Python Instrument Drivers Details ".

 

LabVIEW instrument drivers

While other driver types work well in LabVIEW, LabVIEW drivers have the advantage of being written natively in LabVIEW code; that means that the source code is directly available if it needs to be modified. LabVIEW drivers can be written to directly access I/O API’s, such as VISA, or can be used as wrappers on top of other drivers, such as IVI drivers.

LabVIEW is a U.S. registered trademark of National Instruments, Corp.

 

image3MATLAB instrument drivers

MATLAB instrument drivers provide a convenient way to wrap existing instrument drivers, such as IVI or VXIplug&play drivers, or create custom instrument drivers for use in MATLAB. MATLAB instrument drivers are created and modified using the Instrument Control Toolbox, and MATLAB instrument drivers can only be used in MATLAB. 

MATLAB is a U.S. registered trademark of The Math Works, Inc.  

 

 

 

Searching for available instrument drivers on Keysight.com

 

  1. To search for these groups of drivers or  drivers for a specific instrument model , please click  here , and then search for keywords like “IVI.NET driver”,  IVI-COM driver IVI-C driver ”, “Python instrument driver” or  the instrument model number like  “34401A”:  

image4

 

2. Then scroll down on the search results and click on the “Software” -> “Drivers” filter on the left:  

image5



Legacy or Obsolete instrument drivers

VXIplug&play  instrument drivers  

VXIplug&play  is a term indicating conformance to a set of system-level standards, produced by the  VXIplug&play  Systems Alliance (now maintained by the IVI Foundation). These standards apply to instrument drivers, soft front panels, installation packages, documentation, technical support and application development environments.  

VXIplug&play  drivers were considered the industry-standard instrument drivers for many years but have been largely replaced by IVI drivers.  VXIplug&play  drivers can be used in environments such as:  

    • Keysight VEE  

    • C/C++  

    • MathWorks MATLAB ( requires a MATLAB instrument driver wrapper )  

    • Microsoft Visual Studio  .Net  ( requires a wrapper which can be created by third-party applications )  

    • National Instruments LABVIEW

    • National Instruments LabWindows/CVI 

VXIplug&play  drivers are sometimes known by other names, such as  VXIpnp Plug&Play , or Universal Instrument Drivers.  

An additional article about " VXIplugandplay G Style Drivers " is available.

 

VEE Panel instrument drivers  

VEE Panel Drivers are essentially a virtual front  panel, and  make instrument programming interactive and graphical. VEE Panel Drivers were supported only by  Keysight VEE, and  are now considered obsolete. VEE Panel Drivers were also known as Classic, VEE, or ITG Instrument Drivers.  

 

D-SCPI instrument drivers  

Downloadable Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments, or D-SCPI, instrument drivers download into VXI Command Modules (E1300, E1301, E1306, E1405, and E1406) and interpret SCPI commands into register-level I/O. It is highly recommended that the D-SCPI driver be installed whether the VXI instrument is programmed using its  VXIplug&play  driver or using SCPI commands embedded in an I/O language. This information does not apply to message-based modules which have built-in SCPI drivers.  

 

I-SCPI instrument drivers  

I-SCPI stands for Interpreted Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments. Register-based VXI modules installed in Embedded VXI Controllers or MXI or  VXLink  systems (V743, EPC-7, EPC-8, E6232, E1489, E1383, and E1483) require an I-SCPI driver to provide programming capability. This information does not apply to message-based modules which have built-in SCPI drivers.  

 

 

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