Software for measurement automation: A review of the state of the art

Accepted Manuscript Software for measurement automation: a review of the state of the art Pasquale Arpaia, Ernesto De Matteis, Vitaliano Inglese PII: DOI: Reference:

S0263-2241(15)00046-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2015.01.020 MEASUR 3233

To appear in:

Measurement

Received Date: Revised Date: Accepted Date:

10 October 2014 5 January 2015 16 January 2015

Please cite this article as: P. Arpaia, E.D. Matteis, V. Inglese, Software for measurement automation: a review of the state of the art, Measurement (2015), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2015.01.020

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Software for measurement automation: a review of the state of the art Pasquale Arpaiaa,b , Ernesto De Matteisc,b , and Vitaliano Ingleseb b European

a University of Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN), Geneva, Switzerland c University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy

Abstract The world of software for measurement and test applications is analyzed by considering two main distinct groups of solutions related to the scenario on the market and to the state of the art in research. For the first group, after defining suitable decision criteria for analyzing the related products, the most innovative and promising solutions of manufacturers leaders are reviewed. In the second group, software tools and applications for instrumentation and measurement research are examined, by looking for main trends in the related scenario and a synthesis of the most promising advancements. Keywords: application software, software systems, automatic programming, review

1. Introduction Automatic test and measurement (or data acquisition) systems are used to assess experimentally parameter values of a process, a product, or an experiment. They are different from monitoring systems integrated in process/plant 5

supervision and control, because the measured values are not used directly (i.e. as a part of the same system) to adjust automatically the process/plant under test [1]. At industrial level, increasing automation in the production process amplifies Email address: [email protected] (Pasquale Arpaia)

Preprint submitted to Measurement

January 31, 2015

more and more the needs for accurate measurement systems for quality con10

trol and, consequently, the need for developing the related software. At scientific level, analogously new experiments and machines (like particle accelerators, astro-telescopes, or space missions) require impressive performance of automatic measurement and systems, often well beyond the state-of-the-art limits [2]. The choice of the appropriate application software for an automatic measure-

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ment system is an important step for all the test operators. As a matter of fact, the software is the core of modern automatic measurement systems. For selecting a suitable development tool, main imperative is handling the scalability as the measurement systems matures and evolves, in order to avoid the code to be rewritten. But software developers face also the challenge of producing

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reliable and high-quality applications in a very-short time [1]. Moreover, another key need is the integration of different families of various measurement instruments, by minimizing configuration and measurement time. Finally, the software for measurement applications should be highly effective to exploit first the increased throughput of the new transducers and acquisition systems and,

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simultaneously, to keep flexibility, re-usability, maintainability, and portability in order to maximize its quality. In synthesis, in this context, (i) f lexibility means the capability of satisfying a large set of measurement applications, possibly in different fields, with rapid and cost-effective realization, especially in research and development environment; (ii) reusability is aimed at adding new

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features to components with minor code alterations, as well as with reduced implementation time and bugs probability, owing to preceding testing and use; (iii) maintainability, both for easy revision after release, in order to correct faults and/or improve performance or other attributes and error correction, and for optimizing performance and features, by removing obsolete capabilities; in

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fact, during the software life, evolution is unavoidable, thus suitable mechanisms must be set up for crafting, assessing, and tracing modifications; (iv) and portability, by suitably abstracting between application logic and system interfaces, for exploiting the same code in diverse environments, in order to reduce development cost when producing for several computing platforms. 2

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Figure 1: Criteria for choosing the right software environment.

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In this paper, main measurement and test software applications are reviewed in order to highlight key features, analyze principal market solutions, companies, and products. Then, the horizon of the investigation is broadened to the software for research and development, in order to focus main motivations and needs in current innovation trends.

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2. Main Market Solutions In this section, first the main criteria for addressing the right choice of software for automatic measurement systems are highlighted; then, main market solutions are analyzed. 2.1. Criteria for choosing software

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Generally, very rarely the measurement software application is developed by starting by a pure programming language. At professional level, the completeness and the easiness of the available software platform, (defined as the environment to write and run applications, including tools like GUI builders, compilers, class libraries, and utilities) plays a determining role [3].

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The main criteria for choosing the right software environment for developing successfully and effectively a high-quality measurement application are sketched in Fig.1. About f lexibility, software applications range from ready-to-run programs (no 3

further programming required) to environments for developing fully customiz60

able applications. Although the choice of a software environment is based on the current development requirements, an important factor is how the application can scale and solve problems over time. Specific measurement procedures use software tools with a set of features for a limited subset of hardware options. The current and over-time scaled requirements are met by suitably selecting a

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development environment allowing custom applications to be created. Development environments for measurement application are extremely flexible, allowing instrumentation drivers to be integrated into the software and a custom user interface to be developed. The only trade-off is the time to be spent for learning their use and the related programming language. Although this could seem a

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negative aspect, the development environments provide a variety of information sources, including on-line and live training, getting-started examples, community forums to share code, and so on. Another key criterion for a good selection is the usability of the software application, i.e. the time needed to learn the usage of a new piece of software. This

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is different for each user and depends on the type of the software application. Users spend considerable time to learn the language used within the development environment. Ready-to-run software tools are the easiest and fastest to learn, because programming details are excluded for the users. If the choice of a new environment requires to learn a new programming language, the users con-

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sider the software as aimed at solving the current application problem, rather than at low-level encoding. Programming languages, such as C++, are more challenging to learn for their complex grammar and syntax rules. Graphical programming languages are easier to learn for their intuitive nature, but are not so much widespread as standard de-facto traditional languages [3]. More-

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over, their level of abstraction is higher, and does not provide the possibility of programming at low-level by accessing directly hardware features for optimizing time and memory use in constraining real-time applications. Integrability is the capability of the application software to be interfaced effectively with instrumentation and measurement setup, and with other software 4

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tools for data analysis, visualization, and storage. In most cases, the existence of a software driver of a measuring device is not sufficient for its direct integration into the automatic measurement system. The most important thing is to choose a software driver or a tool directly compatible with the software application as a whole. In most measurement applications, tools for data analysis are

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designed directly for data acquisition through suitable signal manipulation aids [3]. Furthermore, the application software usually should have an easy way to visualize the acquired data. Finally, the application software should integrate easily with system and data management software to store data of tests. About information availability, the chosen development software should be sur-

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rounded by a certain amount of knowledge. A wealth of resources and information makes easy the learning of new software tools for each user, by guiding the application development with suitable feedback. Before choosing a development tool, the best practice is to take information about existing case studies and to gain as much as possible knowledge about their positive and negative aspects.

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The history of a measurement system depends on the stability and longevity of the application software, in order to avoid obsolescence in short time. For software reuse, the abstraction plays a central role in order to make intuitive and expressive the application software. Moreover, scalability, conceived as ability of a program to adapt effectively to variation in data size, allows the measure-

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ment software to process well both small and large data sets, independently of the device setup size.

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6 Figure 2: Main Market Solutions Tree: Leaders and Products.

2.2. Leaders and products In this subsection, the market of software for measurement applications is analyzed according to the above criteria in order to depict a scenario of the com115

mercial products. The resulting tree of the main market solutions is represented in Fig. 2, by highlighting producers and their software. A further important objective criterion is that the producers considered in Fig. 2 are leaders in the market from at least thirty years. The tree does not have the presumption to be neither exhaustive nor objective, in the sense that the classification is made ac-

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cording only to the above criteria and, above all, for purposes functional to the paper exposition. Moreover, the classification does not express any judgment about a scale of quality of the products, and reflects only personal ideas of the authors. Finally, the corresponding market picture is taken at the moment of the paper publication, without any presumption to be durable over long time.

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In particular, the following main producers classes are highlighted: 1) National Instruments, 2) Agilent Technologies, 3) Azimuth Systems, 4) Astronics Test Systems, and 5) others. Indeed, these producers are the leaders of measurement application systems, as producers above all of measurement instrumentation (devices, sensors, trans-

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ducers, analyzers, and so on), and only after of software for measurement application. This aspect is common to all the producers, main leaders, and others producers (Fig. 2). By analyzing the products, the flexibility is not really a global factor, but in some case it depends on the application field. Software integrability is subject to the use of proprietary instrumentation. Regard to

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usability, resource availability, and history, all the producers are leaders in the market from at least thirty years, and for this reason their products are recognized as stable and reliable. In the following, a short overview of the producers and their main products is presented.

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National Instruments offers a complete software and hardware platform for building an automatic test system [4].

By means of this platform, NI of-

fers service programs for supporting users throughout the application life cycle 7

from planning and development up to deployment and on-going maintenance. According to the above-mentioned basic criteria, the highest performance NI 145

products are the Test Management and Development Software (Ni TestStand, NI VeriStand, NI LabVIEW, NI LabWindows/CVI, NI Measurement Studio) [4]. NI TestStand is a test management software for speeding the development of automated test and experimental validation systems without programming knowledge. Test sequences integrating code modules written in any test pro-

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gramming language can be developed. The sequences specify execution flow, database logging, connectivity, and reporting to other enterprise systems. NI VeriStand allows real-time tasks (I/O, profiles, alarms) to be configured, system simulations to be implemented, and a run-time editable user interface to be created. Control algorithms, simulation models, and other tasks from NI and

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third-party software environments can be imported. LabVIEW [5] is an intuitive graphical programming environment to help the user in quickly developing complex test software with support for thousands of technologies and instruments, such as multicore and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). LabVIEW platform has seen its users base grow to more than

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one million consumers worldwide this past decade, until to become a true de facto standard. The programming language of LabVIEW is a dataflow programming language, inspired by G-code. The execution structure is determined by a graphical block diagram (different function-nodes connected by drawing wires). In addition to graphical programming, the main benefits of LabVIEW

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are: i) interfacing, as access to many different drivers for devices and hardware instrumentation; ii) large libraries, a large number of function block for data acquisition, analysis, mathematic, signal processing, and so on; iii) code reuse, re-usability of code without modification; iv) parallel and/or multi-threading programming, easy to program multi-task for hardware automation.

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In the LabVIEW platform, further measurement application software can be found, such as LabVIEW SignalExpress. SignalExpress is an interactive software package for data-logging, as well as for acquiring and presenting data from hundreds of data acquisition devices and instruments, by allowing their analysis 8

without programming. From a technical point of view, LabVIEW SignalEx175

press is a signal analysis software package, because the core of its features is specifically customized for this task. LabWindows/CVI is a proven ANSI C integrated development environment providing test engineers with a comprehensive set of programming tools, including instrument drivers and functions, analysis libraries, multicore programming ca-

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pabilities, and assistants to auto-generate code. With respect to LabVIEW, hardware features of the instruments can be accessed at low level owing to the programming in C. Measurement Studio is a plug-in of National Instruments for Microsoft Visual Studio [6], considerably reducing application development time for creating test

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applications, by providing an integrated suite of measurement and automation controls, tools, and class libraries, specific for .NET programmers. The developer productivity is increased by extending the Microsoft .NET Framework and by providing measurement and automation classes as well as Windows Forms and Web Forms controls for Visual Basic .NET and Visual C#. Most important

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features of Measurement Studio are the advanced analysis and signal processing libraries, the engineering-specific user interface controls, the hardware integration, the compatibility with NI TestStand, the automation of the test process, and the flexible debugging. Agilent Technologies represents a company leader in the field of measurement

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instrumentation and application software [7]. Its software and informatics portfolio covers a broad range of analytical workstations, applications, workflows, and laboratory management solutions to meet the needs namely of the life sciences and chemical industries. The analysis of Agilent’s software and informatics portfolio points out many software tools for measurement application, but only

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few of them meet the criteria of the present analysis. Particularly interesting is the Liquid Chromatography - Instrument Control Framework (ICF)[8]. The ICF is a software package that makes fast and easy for third-party software providers the control of Agilent liquid chromatography systems through their data systems or workstations. ICF contains instrument drivers and user interfaces, and 9

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provides a simple programming interface for third-party software connectivity. The main technical feature of ICF is the application-oriented nature of software, though limited to liquid chromatography systems, and the strict linking with specific Agilent instrumentation. OpenLAB Laboratory Software Framework is an Agilent software tool with a

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new approach for managing laboratory data [9]. Agilent OpenLAB is more than a laboratory database, in particular it represents a framework for managing laboratory content and work processes. The main features of OpenLAB are: scalable architecture, protect and secure data, centralized management, support for laboratory business processes, and flexible deployment [9]. Agilent

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VEE (Visual Engineering Environment) [10] is a graphical language environment, designed to provide a quick path to measurement and analysis. The main features of VEE are: i) a virtual environment (objects or instruments, wires, data flows, etc), to design the measurement setup; ii) tools to create and to debug programs easily; and iii) multithreading technology and multicore pro-

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gramming. Agilent BenchVue [11] is an intuitive software environment that accelerates testing by providing multiple instrument measurement visibility and data capture without programming. The main specifications of BenchVue are: viewing, capturing and exporting measurement data.

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Azimuth Systems is a leading provider of wireless broadband test equipment and channel emulators for LTE-Advanced, LTE, WiMAX, and other 2G/3G/4G technologies [12]. Azimuths products are used by the worlds foremost wireless semiconductor and system vendors, as well as by leading service providers, to speed time-to-market and improve wireless service quality. Azimuths fully in-

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tegrated software architecture is designed to efficiently manage all the aspects of wireless testing, from test configuration to results analysis. In particular, Azimuth DIRECTOR II is a flexible software management tool that enables automation of custom test plans, runs standard scripts, and manages all the devices in the test-bed [13]. Director II has a modular architecture, with five

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primary applications: i) TestBed Manager, providing a common, centralized 10

interface to control and manage all the test bed devices within the test environment; ii) Test Builder, enabling engineers to easily construct flexible test scripts without knowledge of Test Control Language programming; iii) Test Driver, providing an intuitive interface to Azimuths standard scripts for performance 240

and certification and to custom developed scripts; iv) Test Scheduler, a batching and scheduling application allowing users to organize and batch a group of test scripts, with sequence and scheduling flexibility; and v) Test Editor, a script editor enabling engineers to create their own customized test scripts. Astronics Test Systems is a complete test and measurement systems provider

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[14], offering a full-range of products and capabilities, such as integrated test solutions, complete turn-key hardware and software systems, custom designs, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) instrumentation, engineering solutions, and test software. Astronics Test Systems has leading role in software development for test instrumentation that supports flight hardware, guidance systems,

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aircraft engines and other mission-critical systems. The ActivATE platform and the TYX product line (PAWS, TestBase, SigBase, and TRD, not pointed out in Fig. 2. for conciseness) represent the main software products [15] in the measurement application software. ActivATE is a platform to develop software, providing both runtime and development environments for automatic test equip-

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ment. It is an open architecture IDE (Integrated Development Environment), allowing the user to rapidly and intuitively build test programs for Automatic Test Equipment (ATE). The ActivATE Test Platform is a software environment based on the .Net architecture. PAWS Developers Studio is a product to compile, modify, debug, document, and simulate the operation of ATLAS

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(Abbreviated Test Language for All Systems, a military standard language for automatic testing of avionics equipment [16]) test programs in a modern Windows NT Platform environment. A full range of the most-commonly used ATLAS Language subsets is supported. A PAWS Toolkit can modify the ATLAS Language subset to meet the particular ATE configuration. TestBase is a test

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executive supporting the visual development, database storage, and run-time execution of test strategies (also known as test plans or test sequences). Test11

Figure 3: Plot of Technical Product Categories vs Producers.

Base modular and open architecture enables system integrators and end-users to customize and extend the product and to integrate additional third-party applications. The entire Automatic Test Equipment lifecycle (new, re-host, legacy) 270

is supported through common user interfaces, configuration management capabilities, and automatic generation of development documentation. SigBase is an IEEE-1641 [17] compliant signal-based test environment, supporting the visual organization and execution of IEEE-1641 strategies created from basic signal components and test signal frameworks. SigBase is also an ITAR (International

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Traffic in Arms Regulations)-controlled product [18], i.e. SigBase is considered a defense-related service, so the export and import of this is controlled by ITAR. The Test Requirements Document (TRD) System helps users to develop and document the strategy and structure of test programs using suitable screens, flowchart generation tools, and documentation formats, all in accordance with

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the most popular military standard formats or with unique custom formats. ATLAS test program can be automatically generated from the information provided by the user. Like SigBase, TRD is an ITAR-controlled product. The other producers (Fig.2) represent a group of measurement application

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producers of market impact not comparable to the abovementioned companies. 285

Indeed, PULSE platform, Data Translation, Yokogawa, and Digital Metrology Solutions have products meeting the abovementioned basic criteria of flexibility and integration of software. Most important drawbacks are related to the resource availability, usability, stability, and general history. This makes impossible a plausible comparison with the main leader producers.

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From a strict technical point of view, all the abovementioned products of all the producers can be classified in four categories: Test Management Software, Test Development Software, Application-based Software, and Signal Analysis Software. A corresponding cataloging of the technical categories vs producers of software packages is plotted in Fig. 3. The Test Management Software products

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(Director II, ActivATE Test Platform, NI TestStand and VeriStand) are flexible measurement software packages integrated in a full management tool. They foster and manage the most important measurement steps: 1) management of all the devices within the test environment; 2) flexible construction of test scripts; 3) test driver by an intuitive interface; 4) test batching and scheduling;

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and 5) test editor for implementing measurement scripts. The main difference between the product classes of Test Management Software and Test Development Software is the management aspect. In effect, Test Development Software products are measurement-oriented, i.e. they represent suitable environments for developing a measurement application. Some products (Instrument Control

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Framework, PAWS, TRD System, Pulse Platform, VIBpoint) show management and development features, but in specific measurement step or application. As an example, ICF and Pulse Platform are full measurement application platforms, but their fields of application are specific, liquid chromatography and sound/vibration measurement, respectively. For this reason, this kind of prod-

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ucts difficultly matches other fields of application, and they are inserted in the category of Application-based Software. In the category of Signal Analysis Software, products such as LabVIEW Signal Express, BenchVue and SigBase of Astronics Test Systems, for analyzing the signals in a easy and quick way are included. 13

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3. Research - state of the art The objective of this Section is to analyze the research and the development of software in measurement applications, such as for industry, science, and other fields. With respect to the previous Section on main market solutions, the basic criteria for analyzing the state of the art in research on innova-

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tive software applications for automatic measurement systems are conceptually different. Talking about resource availability, history and stability, as well as usability is meaningless for scanning the research trends. Flexibility and integration concepts are again used, but mainly at technical level. In scientific literature, the measurement-oriented software is integrated in automatic test or

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real-time monitoring systems. The software applied to measurement methods can be flexible with respect to the specific application field. A more useful strategy for classifying the research state of the art is to analyze the software applied to automatic measurements from a technical point of view. From this viewpoint, in research papers, three main classes can be identified

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(Fig. 4): Hardware and Software Platforms, Specific and Custom Software, and Development Environments. A platform includes a hardware architecture and a software framework combined to run application software. Typical platforms include operating system, computer architecture, programming languages, and related user interface (run-time

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system libraries or graphical user interface). On the market, specific or custom software (also known as bespoke software or tailor-made software) is expressly developed for some definite organizations or users. In scientific research, the concept is analogous, but the organization and the user are replaced by specific instrumentation, devices, sensors networks or particular setup, applied and

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found in literature. Looking into the first two classes, a third class, tranversal both of them, is represented by Real Time Systems. Finally, the software can be classified (Fig. 4) according to the environment or language used for implementing the measurement system (Paradigm Programming, Domain Specific Langage, Visual Programming Language, and so on).

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15 Figure 4: State of art Research Tree: Software for Measurement Applications.

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A development environment is a crucial element in software production. An environment might be defined in the simplest case even as a place to launch software. Application software can depend on the features of the particular environment, either the hardware, operating system, or virtual machine it runs on. This is a transversal criterion common to all the above classes, for this

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reason the related research trends were classified separately in bottom in Fig. 4. The main criterion of classification was the classical category of programming languages and/or paradigms. In the following, the synthesis tree of Fig. 4 is discussed, by referring to its abovementioned main classes of research trends. 3.1. Hardware and Software Platforms

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In literature, the research trends related to Hardware and Software Platforms point out different features, mainly hardware and /or software nature, or specific technical keywords, such as flexible, frameworks, distributed, and so on. Accordingly, the corresponding branch of the tree in Fig. 4 is divided in two main trend sets: Flexible Measurement Systems and Distributed and Diagnostics

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Systems. 3.1.1. Flexible measurement systems In general, research trends on flexible measurement systems put main design focus on flexibility, modularity, generality, and hardware independence [19]. They represent software architectures meeting specifically these requirements by

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innovative solutions, and structures expressly conceived for implementing versatile measurement systems. Typically, flexible measurement systems are based on software packages (monitoring with data acquisition, processing, transmission, and storing, as well as result analysis), with various possibility of communication. For instance, in the monitoring system for electrical stations [20], each

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electrical cell contains protection, control, and acquisition equipment for the monitored station. In particular, the equipment is based on twofold units, with all the functions and interfaces necessary for: (i) acquisition, protection, and control; and (ii) display and operations for ”Man-Machine Interface” (MMI in

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Figure 5: Block diagram of the acquisition, protection and control equipment for an electrical cell [20].

Fig.5), respectively. 375

They are applied to different industrial operations, such as the protection of plants operation, system supervision, detection, and provision of measured values. In research trends about flexible systems, other two specific classes can be distinguished: Software Frameworks and Specific Hardware systems emphasizing software and hardware aspects, respectively.

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Software Frameworks

All the innovative measurement systems exploiting a software framework privilege flexibility and integration. A framework allows software for measurement 385

and test applications under highly and fast-varying requirements to be developed easily. The framework can be configured for satisfying a large set of measurement applications and operation users in a generic field for an industrial test division, a test laboratory, or a research center [21]. Main framework requirements are focused by highlighting the users operation for a generic automatic

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measurement system: test engineers, developers/administrators and application users (how shown in Fig.6). A software platform can be designed for particular 17

Figure 6: Operation users for a generic automatic measurement system [21].

hardware or functional requirements, but with the specific aim of providing the development of new features (Fig.7) [22, 23]. Other types of frameworks are general tools for automatically analyzing the measurement data [24, 25, 26], or 395

the dependability of measurements and algorithms on distributed systems [27]. The generic object-oriented based frameworks present the main advantages of object-oriented programming: encapsulation, inheritance, flexible-construction, and multi-task options. These features make the approach of measurement strongly oriented to software integration, with the effect of supporting dynamic

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modeling and data fusion of instruments. This allows both object-oriented databases to be created for measurement, and expert systems or test platforms to be built for processing measurement information [28, 29, 30, 31, 32]. A model-driven paradigm for defining measurement/test procedures, configuring instruments, and synchronizing tasks is applied to a flexible framework

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for maximizing the software quality [21, 33]. The final goal of the project, presented in [34], is to design, implement, and deploy a extensible, flexible, and dynamic system, and in Fig.8, the scheme shows how the framework manages the application lifecycle. A framework can be provided by a powerful mechanism 18

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Figure 7: Classification of software frameworks in measurement research applications.

to adapt component-based distributed applications to changing environmental 410

conditions [35]. An increasing research trend is arisen aimed at conceiving measurement frameworks [36, 37] for general-purposes and rapid prototyping of frameworks for end-to-end sensing systems, in order to monitor and diagnose problems on a wide-area network [38]. In [39, 40], global framework for monitoring and control

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and optimization of power electronics systems are described. Component-based frameworks for data stream processing are presented for highly-distributed measurement systems [41, 42]. Other software development environment, frameworkbased, provide a graphically programming way to quickly build automatic test and measurement systems [43].

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Specific Hardware

Sometimes, software packages are present in specific hardware-based measurement systems for keeping specifically the feature of flexibility. The class treats 425

different measurement fields (monitoring), and aspects (simulation, and design). About monitoring, as an example, in [44], the data acquisition hardware plat-

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Figure 8: Application scheme presented in [34].

form of three-dimensional machining force measurement presents a flexible software package for on-line monitoring, analysis, and testing. Analogously, flexible monitoring and signal processing platforms with modular software were devel430

oped for biomedical application [45, 46] and vibration analysis [47]. Regarding simulation and design aspects, a flexible radar system simulator applied for tank level measurement emulates the effects of antenna designs, thus to accelerate the verification process [48]. In [49], the design of an experimental flexible energy measurement system, consisting of distributed sensor networks

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with versatile and agent-based communication software is treated. A structured graphical method applied to design and implementation of intelligent instruments is presented in [50], where the conceptualization of the system is put in a new graphical object oriented tool. 3.1.2. Distributed and Diagnostics Systems

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In literature, a subgroup of research trends on flexible measurement systems is devoted to distributed and/or diagnostics-oriented measurement systems. Dif-

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Figure 9: General design diagram of a distributed system for temperature and humidity control.[54].

ferently from a traditional centralized data acquisition, the approach is to distribute the devices around the specific application, in order to both interact locally in the test environment, and have a cheaper and less complex system. In 445

the proposed classification, distributed systems have complex/intelligent nodes (sensing, data acquisition, processing, control, and transmission modules) with a central unit for supervision. About software aspects, these present software installed locally (on the nodes), implementing different functions. Research is devoted to integrated software platforms for test and diagnosis based on data

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services, packages, and definition of interfaces [51, 52, 53]. New software tools are applied to measure the temperature and humidity accurately with low cost [54, 55]. For instance in Fig.9, the general diagram of a typical monitoring device with three layers (central control computer, distributed intelligent nodes and sensor nodes) is presented.

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Particular attention is paid to the management software of the acquired data, in monitoring applications [52, 56], to automate the measurement tasks [57, 58]. The development of virtual instrumentation is presented in [59], applied to torsional vibration and phasor measurement, respectively. A platform for simula-

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Figure 10: Distributed virtual laboratory.[65].

tion and real-time autonomous guided vehicles navigation [60] employs software 460

architecture and code to reduce development time necessary for debugging, optimizing control algorithms and identifying system.

Web-based

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A further significant research trend is devoted to distributed measurement systems classified as web-based (Fig. 4), owing to their feature of remote control and monitoring by internet. In this class, other sub-trends can be identified, according to the application (integrated laboratory, and industrial process), software programming (object oriented ) and environment (WWW-based ). In

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[61, 62, 63, 64, 65], integrated laboratory environments are aimed at providing remote access to heterogeneous equipment for a multiplicity of users. In Fig. 10, the general architecture of a distributed virtual laboratory is shown, where the access is carried out by internet remote client. Web tools, based on objectoriented programming and client/server communications, have been developed

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for allowing remote configuration and flexible management of remote instru22

Figure 11: Test and measurement setup for a radio-frequency identification tag based on virtual instrument.[76].

ments [66, 67, 68]. In [69] and [70], WWW-based software environments are used for the design of panels of virtual measuring instruments, and for measurement data access, respectively. Integrated systems, again based on the web, are applied to remote monitoring and control of industrial processes [71]. 480

3.2. Specific and Custom Software In the state of the art of research, often software applied to measurement is difficult to find, and most of the times, it represents an accessory component of research proposal, usually hidden in the hardware description. From this point of view, another category of software application, Specific and Custom

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Software, is identified (Fig. 4). In this category, the software applied to measurement systems, which cannot be considered as platforms or flexible systems, is included. However, by analyzing the literature, different technical features of these specific and custom systems can be distinguished. The technical features are referred to the following particular application system: 1) Automatic

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and Control Systems, 2) Sensor Networks, and 3) Dedicated Devices. In the following, a general discussion of these software applications is presented. 3.2.1. Automatic and Control Systems Among the specific and custom software, a first significant category is represented by software applied to automatic and control systems. The nature of

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a control system of a process involves first a comparison between the current measurements and a reference value, and, then, in presence of differences, a suitable feedback response. The main feature of this kind of systems is the specific application to be controlled, and from this, the relative software is specific and customized to the control application. An additional sub-classification

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can be carried out according to the control field (energy, transmission, motion, monitoring and graphics). About energy control software, typical examples are virtual instruments developed for automatic measurement systems applied to power systems monitoring [72, 73], or to battery resistance measurement [74]. Moreover, a multifunction virtual instrument system for harmonic measurement

505

of voltage and current signals is designed and implemented in [75]. In the transmission control field, an UHF radio-frequency identification tag test and measurement system based on virtual instrument programming is proposed in [76]. About this, the Fig.11 displays the measurement setup of a RFID tag, placed at a fixed distance from reader antenna (far-field zone) in anechoic chamber.

510

In a power flow controller of AC transmission system, a software development system for measurement and control field is employed for the system application [77]. For measurement and control on high-precision motion platforms [78, 79], software systems are implemented to controlling the main components of high-

515

precision system. Based on the principle of virtual instrument, a measurement and control system for sling stretch test machine was constructed via the software platform [80], and for motion control of pipeline inspection robot [81]. For condition monitoring application, the design and development of the dataacquisition and storage parts of a measurement system include pc software im-

520

plementation of virtual instruments [82, 83]. Finally, a graphical software tool with user interface was implemented to assist the selection of extrapolation methods for moving-boat ADCP streamflow measurements [84].

24

3.2.2. Sensor Networks 525

A sensor network is a network of spatially-distributed autonomous sensors for monitoring physical and chemical quantities. Differently from the Distributed systems, each node of the network carries out only sensing, acquisition and data transmission with centralized control and processing. Therefore, the difference between Sensor networks and Distributed measuring systems is related to the

530

centralization or distribution of the control and data processing: distributed and diagnostics systems represent multi-node networks (such as in Fig.9), where each node integrates locally sensing, data acquisition, and transmission, with specific processing and control modules (intelligent node). Differently, sensor networks are still considered as distributed systems for the measurement, but with central-

535

ized control and processing. In other terms, each node of the network carries out only sensing, acquisition and data transmission. About hardware, distributed systems have complex/intelligent nodes (sensing, data acquisition, processing, control, and transmission modules) with a central unit for supervision. Sensor networks present nodes (sensing, data acquisition, and transmission module)

540

less complex than in the previous case. About software aspects, both the systems present a centralized software for control (data management); the main difference is the possibility for distributed systems to have software installed locally (on the nodes), implementing different functions. More modern networks are wireless and bidirectional, also to enable control

545

systems, and are used in many industrial and consumer applications, such as health monitoring, industrial process, machine control, and so on [85]. Such as for the previous class (automatic and control systems), the sensor networks depend strongly on the field application, and on the particular case of study. For this reason, the related software can be considered as specific and case study-

550

oriented. For continuous monitoring with multi-sensor data acquisition GPS-based technology, the measurement techniques are based on general-purpose [86] and on embedded software [87]. In [88], a temperature measurement and control sys-

25

Figure 12: Principle of the measurement system for pressure measurements.[95].

tem for constant temperature reciprocator platelet preservation box is designed 555

based on Fuzzy-PID control, and virtual instrument software. A Multipoint Wireless Measurement System is presented with multiple sensors transmission and virtual instrument interface for data processing [89]. A virtual instrumentation support system that permits to run several concurrent virtual instruments has been developed like a multi-tasking graphical environment [90].

560

3.2.3. Dedicated Devices The class of software for dedicated devices includes all the packages designed and conceived for custom devices set apart for special applications. In this class, different purposes or trends can be identified, such as integration, control, flexible or user friendly features, general measurement and monitoring systems.

565

About the integration and control, for the on-line diagnosis of reactive plasmas, a flexible data acquisition and automatic control system based on virtual instrument programming [91] was designed to control and integrate all the stand-alone measurement instruments including a TOF spectrometer, a high-performance 26

oscilloscope, a laser system, and a digital delay generator into a single personal 570

computer-based control unit. In [92], for the Ionospheric Bubble Seeker, a new post processing technique based on the Java programming language was developed for all the operating systems and allowing also a remote control. Also integration-oriented are the virtual instruments presented in [93, 94], the former is an auto-measurement system of wave-plates phase retardation, and the former

575

a software for tests of Large Binocular Telescope. In [95], the control software of an ultrasonic sensor for pressure measurements is constituted by a virtual instrument, that represents the core of measurement system, as displayed in Fig.12. About the flexibility aspect and/or the capability of making user friendly a par-

580

ticular hardware, typical example are related to a virtual instrument integrated with a power network analyzer [96] or the implementation of the measurement communication of a weather station [97]. Other dedicated devices are inserted in traditional measurement and monitoring systems, such as the system applied to leakage current of insulator using a

585

virtual instrument for analyzing the data [98], and the grounding measurement system of substations adopting a virtual instrument to implement the small electric current method [99]. Finally, in [100, 101], custom software is implemented for measuring RF chip properties and for testing AD converters, respectively.

590

3.3. Real-Time Systems In the state of the art of software applied to measurements, real-time systems represent a transversal feature. For this reason, this kind of software applications is positioned at the center of the classification tree (Fig. 4). The main feature of these systems is to guarantee response within strict time constraints useful

595

for application purposes as control or monitoring. Correspondingly, different trends can be identified such as, monitoring, automatic and control systems, as well as also different interconnection with the rest of literature (hardware and software platforms, and specific and custom software) can be highlighted. 27

In [102], a control system, for verifying the film thickness in copper chemical 600

mechanical planarization (CMP) offline modules), presents an in-situ module, developed in C++, for real-time measurements. A real-time system with biofeedback devices for rehabilitative postural control [103] is implemented by a software framework. The control system of [104] measures the characterization of electron device degradation under nonlinear dynamic regime by real-time

605

software. An experimental design and construction of a real-time system for measuring frames of water flow is pointed up in [105]. About monitoring applications, the paper [106] presents a sensor network for stem cell culture process. In [107], software developed in visual basic designs a real-time overload monitoring system for bridges and roads. An automatic

610

system for avionics electro-mechanical actuators, based on multi-threading technique software (Labwindows/CVI) is presented in [108]. In [109], a dedicated automatic system for sieving chips evaluates the testing results in real-time. 3.4. Software Environments In literature, different platforms or programming languages, used for devel-

615

oping the measurement applications, can be identified. First of all, the authors tried to identify the programming paradigms and languages adopted (see fig. 4). The software environments have been divided in four categories: Paradigm programming (Object-oriented), Domain specific language (Numerical language, such as Matlab, Labview/CVI, Meas. Studio), Visual programming language

620

(Labview, Simulink), and others. In second analysis, main consideration regards the impossibility of founding a direct link between technical software features and the used software platform. However, two main trends can be identified: the former is related to the transversal use of user-friendly platforms, and the latter to the link between the nature of the measurement application and the

625

choice of the implementation environment. For the first trend, the visual programming language (LabVIEW of National Instruments, in Fig. 4) shows usability greater than the object-oriented programming in all the custom applications and in few flexible measurement systems. This aspect depends both on 28

the typology of measurement application, and on the possibility of reusing the 630

ready-implemented software. From this point of view, the commercial software platforms, such as LabVIEW, are advantageous with respect to the custom platforms to provide programming developed from scratch. About this second trend, the choice of the implementation platform depends strictly on the size and type of the measurement application. In research project applications of large size

635

[21] and particular typology [22], using object-oriented programming can result more suitable to satisfy measurement requirements, such as dynamic modeling, data fusion of instruments, and user-oriented approach (Fig. 6). Conversely, for automatic control application or dedicated devices that provide stand-alone software implementation, a visual programming platform is preferred for apti-

640

tude and usability. Another important observation is the association between software platform and possibility to generate executable program (.exe file). This property usually results very useful for stand-alone application (real-time and/or automatic control systems). In fact, not coincidentally, commercial platforms (such as LabVIEW),

645

which are very suitable for this purpose, can be associated to custom and specific application (Fig.4).

29

30 Figure 13: Synthesis of Software Applications vs Environments.

3.5. Discussion: Software Application and Environments Relationship In this section, the research carried out by authors in the field of measurement automation and the corresponding development software are related with 650

the specific aim of giving guidance to the reader on the solutions to adopt when facing similar problems. In Fig. 13, a synthesis table, relating the measurement applications and the software environments (top and bottom of tree representation in Fig. 4) is shown. In each intersection application/environment of the table, the considered pa-

655

pers are reported. LabVIEW and/or other visual programming languages turn out to be orthogonal to the proposed classification, i.e. user-friendly software can be used for all the applications. On the other hand, flexible measurement system are orthogonal to the software environments. In particular, the main following trends have been verified in literature: association of (i) visual pro-

660

gramming language with specific and custom software development, and (ii) object-oriented paradigms (C++, Java) with flexible measurement system.

4. Conclusions A review of measurement automation software was tackled in this paper. The main aim is to create a classification of software applied to measurement 665

field, and secondly, to give a suggestive methodology to researchers for choosing measurement-oriented software. About the first one, main criteria for choosing software were identified: application flexibility, easy usability, integrability with other applications, information availability and, software stability and longevity. Main leaders and products on

670

the market (Fig. 2) were analyzed by these criteria and classified in four categories (Fig. 3). The research State of Art of measurement application software concerned the industry, science and other fields. About classification strategy the software was to analyze it from a technical point of view. Three main classes were identified: Hardware and Software Platforms, Specific and Custom

675

Software, and Development Environments. About these last classes, generally,

31

the software frameworks allow the development of applications under highly and fast-varying requirements, and the decentralization of distributed systems is mainly given by Web-based system, owing to their feature of remote control and monitoring through internet. 680

The class specific and custom software includes software, performing as an accessory component of a measurement research proposal, and difficult to be considered as a separate function because usually hidden in the hardware. The software treated in this class is considered non-flexible owing to, firstly, the nature of the control system or process, secondly, the strong dependence on the

685

field application, and, thirdly, the packages designed and conceived for custom devices. About the software environments, the main remark is the absence of relationship between technical features and used software platforms. A classification for programming paradigms and languages has been carried out (Fig. 4). Two

690

main trends were identified: firstly, the transversal use of user-friendly platforms, especially for custom applications, and secondly, the link between measurement application nature and implementation environment choice. In particular, the second aspect highlighted the use of object oriented programming for large project applications. In addition, a last section of discussion, software

695

Application/Environments has been reported for guiding the reader and giving a synthetic overview of the proposed research. Owing to the complexity of this research and the quickness of software evolution, the authors apologize for the omissions surely present in this paper.

Acknowledgments 700

The Authors thank the Anonymous Reviewers for their patience and collaborative disposition in reading and correcting the manuscript. Authors are conscious that the resulting combined work of revision and correction improved significantly their manuscript and are correspondingly grateful to the Reviewers for their contribution.

32

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