Using PXImc for creating high-performance multicomputer test and control systems

Modern day test and control systems are growing larger, more complex and more intricate. Most of these intricacies are in order to address new challenges such as the need for higher speed, higher channel-count data acquisition and generation and on-line data processing. These new test, measurement and control systems need to address these needs while still having to provide other features such as low cost, scalability and flexibility. At the core of these issues there is a fundamental need to transfer and process large amounts of data with minimal delay. The PXI MultiComputing (PXImc) specification, announced by the PXI System Alliance in November 2009, attempts to address such needs of these complicated systems using low-cost, off-the-shelf technology. The specification provides the hardware and software requirements to connect two or more intelligent systems together using PCI or PCI Express based interfaces via a PCI(e) Non-Transparent Bridge (NTB). The PCI Express bus offers multi-gigabyte per seconds of practical data throughput and few microsecond latency and is thus well suited to meet these data transfer needs. This paper explores the details of specific use cases that can be addressed with PXImc. Use cases such as distributed processing for high-performance computing applications such as SIGINT and high-throughput data transfer between intelligent systems for applications such as Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulations will be explored in detail.