Software Capabilities

In test system development, the best hardware is only usable if its software control environment is robust and easy to use. If you are a test system developer, you need to look at both the hardware and software aspects of your vendors of choice.

Our commitment to delivering you high-quality products does not just extend to our switching and simulation products. Our in-house software team has created all of our application software packages and software drivers with a strong focus on ease of use and compatibility with other vendors. Below you will find the software capabilities we offer, from our software drivers to our application software.

Software Drivers

The ideal driver environment should provide ease of installation, support for all popular programming languages and operating systems, and also be intuitive when sending commands to the modules in the test system. Our software drivers have been evolving for over 20 years and are capable of supporting all of our 1,000+ switching and simulation products in PXI, LXI and PCI formats—offering you reliability, diversity and compatibility.

Reliability

For ease-of-use and efficiency, all of our drivers are digitally signed and have been proven to install twice as fast as our major competitors’ drivers.

The Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) offered on our software drivers use a common interface that over the years has evolved to add support for our growing range of switching and simulation products, as well as support for the latest operating systems. We ensure that both our legacy and new switching products can seamlessly work together for you and the interface also accommodates both old and new applications. It should be noted that nearly all of our switching and simulation modules work from the same software driver package—so when you install one Pickering module and driver, you shouldn’t have to install any additional software as you add more Pickering modules.*

Our in-house software team also ensures that you get the most efficient customer support—our goal is to take care of all questions and queries within 24 hours or less.

Diversity

Our software drivers are supported under all major Windows platforms including Windows XP, 7, 8, and 10 in both 32 and 64 bit, and we also provide support for major Linux and MAC distributions.

Our Universal Linux driver is a kernel-less interface that enables you to operate our products with all current mainstream Linux releases.

All of our switching and simulation products are provided with an IVI Class-compliant specific driver. This driver provides complete hardware interchangeability and supports the full functionality of our products.

Compatibility

We provide open software development interfaces allowing the freedom to create different test scenarios using a wide range of development environments such as C, C++, VB, LabVIEW®, LabWindows™/CVI, .NET, MATLAB, Python, TestStand®, Veristand® and Switch Executive™. Most other environments can be supported on request. LabVIEW-RT and Veristand drivers are available for Real-Time applications.

We also provide comprehensive documentation with our drivers and a number of example programs to help you develop test routines with ease.

Take a look at our video "Operating Pickering Switching & Simulation Modules using LabVIEW""

Application Software

In addition to our outstanding driver software, we have developed a number of applications designed to simplify and accelerate test program development and test station maintenance.

General Soft Front Panel

We provide general Soft Front Panels (SFPs) for all our PXI, PCI and LXI products so you can become familiar with them quickly and to enable manual control. Similar to our drivers, our SFPs cover all of our modules with dedicated views provided for their functionality. So whether you buy a Fault Insertion, Resistor or Matrix module—all of our products can be operated from the same SFP.

HTML5 Soft Front Panel

Our HTML5 SFP allows control of our switching products via various desktop PCs, tablets and other mobile devices.

Switch Path Manager™ - Signal Routing Software

Switch Path Manager simplifies signal routing through switching systems and speeds up the development of switching system software. Switch Path Manager supports our switching modules and the interconnection between these products. Third-party products can be supported upon request.

Once a switching system model has been created, simply defining the endpoints that are required to be connected can perform signal routing. The ability to automate signal routing results in effective and easy switching system management—safely and quickly.

Key Features include:

  • Manages complex switching systems
  • Reduces switching software development time
  • Provides automated or pre-defined signal routing
  • Provides static or dynamic routing
  • Eliminates potentially damaging routing errors
  • Manual control capability
  • APIs are available for C, C++, .NET, LavWindows/CVI and LabVIEW

Diagnostic Test Tools for Switching Systems

Verification and diagnosis of complex switching operation in a test system has always been an issue. Two of our latest offerings in diagnostic test tools provide you with a quick and simple way of finding relay failures within our switch systems:

BIRST™ - Built-in Relay Self-Test

BIRST is standard on select LXI & PXI matrix switching systems, it requires no purchased external tools; it merely requires a free software installation on a Windows controller.

eBIRST™ - Switching System Test Tools

The eBIRST tools provide a means of quickly determining if a switching system has faults, identify where the fault is located and allow fast corrective action.

Both of these diagnostic test tools will quickly test the switching system, locate the faulty relay and inform you what relays to replace via a graphical output, thereby considerably reducing downtime and minimizing the problem of ineffective repairs caused by misdiagnosed faults.

Have questions on any of our software? Please feel free to contact us or visit the software section of our Knowledgebase to learn more.

Software Capabilities | Pickering Interfaces
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