Powering intelligent instruments with Lua scripting

Abstract

As the power of the integrated processors that control today's instruments continues to climb, instrument vendors will increasingly add features that allow users to utilize the added intelligence by embedding custom applications directly onboard the instrument. For the test, measurement and automation industries, this paradigm is a complement to, among other things, the advent of synthetic instruments that can “be anything you want,” the frequent use of mezzanine type hardware and the rise of the LXI specification in which instrument to instrument messaging allows one instrument to control and communicate with another without the necessity of a host PC.