> T&M
EXCLUSIVE
High Precision Test and Measurement
Goes Mobile As computing platforms increase in processing power, and at the same time reduce in physical size, they’re driving rapid developments in a variety of mobile applications such as autonomous robots, drones, portable medical devices, intelligent vehicles and smart appliances. Many of these applications also rely on the miniaturization of sensor technology and associated test and measurement electronics in order to perform functions like proximity detection, object or component inspection and motion control. One embedded computing platform, the NVIDIA Jetson, is proving to be a game changer when it comes to mobile applications.
The NVIDIA Jetson consists of an ARM-based CPU (processor that runs with a reduced instruction set) and a CUDA-based GPU (a graphical processing unit that can be used for general purpose processing). Being ARM-based allows the CPU to deliver faster processing speeds while at the same time reducing power requirements. In addition, the built in GPU enables the NVIDIA Jetson to handle large volumes of data and perform high-speed parallel processing operations. The units are compact and can also come with a PCIe slot. For example, the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier1 measures just 105 mm x 105 mm x 65 mm in size and it includes a Gen 4 PCIe interface.
Figure 1. The NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier is small and compact and includes a PCIe interface, e.g., for an 8-channel digitizer card like shown here.
> JULY 2021
Greg Tate
Asian Business Manager, Spectrum Instrumentations To take advantage of this powerful feature set, one company - Spectrum Instrumentation - has created a new driver package that allows any of its PCIe based Test and Measurement products to be used with the NVIDIA Jetson. All that’s needed is to install the drivers on the platform, plug a Spectrum Instrumentation card into the PCIe slot, power up the system and start acquiring or generating signals.
Table 1. Shows a list of commonly used sensor devices, the property they measure and the frequency range they typically operate up to.
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