Instrument Driver for General Purpose Interface Bus (IEEE-488)

Laboratory automation is invaluable to scientists, engineers, and technicians. It provides a mechanism by which many processes can be interactively controlled. A popular method of connecting and controlling laboratory instrumentation is through the General Purpose Interface Bus GPIB. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE standardized this bus under IEEE-488. The objective of this project was to study the IEEE-488 and write instrument drivers in C for the GPIB and the Tektronix 2430A Digital Oscilloscope. These drivers contain functions for initialization, command control., and data acquisition. The first section of this paper discusses the IEEE-488 and provides pertinent technical information. The second section of this paper is an instruction manual for the use of the GPIB and Tektronix oscilloscope instrument drivers. Portions of an InputOutput IO module are included to provide a graphical representation for the data acquired with the GPIB and Tektronix modules. A test program is presented which demonstrates the use of these modules. These drivers will be specifically used for ultrasonic data acquisition capabilities for nondestructive testing of materials. The ultrasonic data is generated by an ultrasonic transducer sending a sound pulse through a material. The reflected signal is displayed on a digitizing oscilloscope.