Instrument Modular Design Based on LXI Bus

With the adoption of switched Ethernet and precision clock synchronization technology, the Internet protocols are used more and more in the measurement and control field due to improved network speed, communication reliability and real-time capabilities. Thus, there is an imminent need to establish a standard for both networked measurement and control systems and instrument buses. LXI (LAN-based Extensions for Instruments), which is a standard interface for LAN-based networked and modularized measurement instruments, emerged from such background. This paper studied the hardware and software design techniques based on LXI bus powered instrument modules, proposed a general architecture for such modules that utilizing embedded microprocessors and network interface chips and discussed the clock synchronization and triggering of LXI instruments.