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Sensicast ropes in National Instruments

08/08/2007

AUSTIN, Texas and BOSTON, August 7 -- At NIWeek 2007, Sensicast Systems announced enhanced support and integration of its SensiNet product line for National Instruments LabVIEW.

SensiNet is an end-to-end turnkey wireless sensor network system that integrates hardware and software elements to monitor environmental and process conditions seamlessly, then transmit the information through a wireless mesh to a SensiNet Gateway, where data is available for in-house or web-based software applications and services.

NI LabVIEW increases productivity and lowers costs for test, control and design applications and now integrates into production networks built around a SensiNet wireless sensor infrastructure. Developers and end users will find the combination of NI LabVIEW and Sensicast's wireless sensor network systems will enable them to create and operate remote system monitoring and control applications easily. Potential applications range from environmental condition monitoring, research, industrial monitoring and test applications for engineers and scientists.

"SensiNet and NI LabVIEW make a powerful combination for actionable information," said Gary Ambrosino, CEO of Sensicast. "Integrating our wireless sensor networks with the LabVIEW graphical development environment enables rapid deployment of custom applications to analyze and evaluate physical world data."

"The popularity of LabVIEW as a graphical design environment makes it well-suited to connect existing wired systems with wireless sensor networks, allowing engineers to preserve their investment while adding new functionality," said David Potter, distributed I/O product strategy manager at National Instruments.

SensiNet-LabVIEW Applications Data captured through a SensiNet network is connected through either OPC Data Access (DA) or ModBusTCP/IP protocols to NI LabVIEW. These industry standard protocols enable Sensicast customers (such as universities, engineering and life sciences laboratories, and commercial industrial facilities) to create calculations and rapidly customize graphical representations of captured data using LabVIEW. LabVIEW includes more than 600 graphical and text-based math and analysis functions that can be adapted to process data acquired from SensiNet wireless sensor networks.

New SensiNet Gateway 2.0 NIWeek 2007 also marks the public debut of Sensicast's new SensiNet Gateway 2.0, which adds performance enhancements and streamlined network management functionality. A self-contained network management and access appliance, the SensiNet Gateway lets network managers securely access and analyze data collected by smart sensors using a convenient browser interface. The SensiNet Gateway communicates sensor data directly to a wide range of industrial monitoring, control and automation software applications, including LabVIEW, Wonderware, RS View, OSI PI, ICONICS Genesis32, CitectSCADA and other ModBus, ODBC, and OPC-compatible software, such as Intellution iFix and Microsoft Excel.

Sensicast is showcasing its wireless sensor networking solutions at the 13th annual National Instruments technology conference, NIWeek held August 6-9, 2007, in Austin, Texas.