Software Development for a CompactRIO-Based Wire Scanner Control and Data Acquisition System

The Beam Diagnostics and Instrumentation Team at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center is developing a wire scanner data acquisition and control system with a National Instrument's compactRIO at its core. For this application, the compactRIO controller not only requires programming the FPGA and RT computer internal to the compactRIO, but also requires programming a client computer and a touch panel display. This article will summarize the hardware interfaces and describe the software design approach utilized for programming and interfacing the four systems together in order to fulfill the design requirements and promote reliable interoperability.