If you are building a data acquisition system with instruments from one or more vendors, you probably expect you will need to install one or more drivers. Such drivers are operating-system-specific, so you must choose the appropriate 32- or 64-bit versions for your Linux or Windows platform, which most data-acquisition instrument makers support. What they don’t tend to support, however, are drivers for mobile operating systems, so if you want to initiate a measurement sequence to examine some acquired data using your smartphone, you’re out of luck.
That’s beginning to change as instruments evolve to look more like Internet-of-Things (IoT) edge devices. Any smart device with a browser can access an edge device, often by using Representational State Transfer (REST), a subset of HTTP and the de facto standard for accessing resources over the web. AMETEK Programmable Power's VTI Instruments brand (VTI) employs REST to provide driverless control for its products, including EX1401 isolated thermocouple and voltage measurement instrument and EX1403A bridge-resistance and strain-gauge measurement instrument, both of which include Ethernet connectivity.
Read the white paper IoT Opens Door to Driverless Control of Data-Acquisition Hardware to learn how platform-independent driverless control can save you time and money when building data-acquisition systems that include instruments such as the EX1401 and EX1403A.
