Data Science garners NI LabView FPGA innovation award

Test & Measurement World Staff- August 18, 2012

Xilinx honored the design team of Data Science Automation at the Graphical System Design Achievement Awards ceremony at NIWeek 2012 for having the most innovative application using National Instruments’ LabView system-design software to program a FPGA in NI hardware to boost overall system performance. Xilinx VP for processing platforms, Larry Getman, presented the LabView FPGA Innovation Award to Dr. Gregory Cala, CTO, and Brad Westfall, senior measurement and automation consultant, of Data Science Automation.

The engineering team was recognized for excellent use of FPGA technology in a mission-critical oil and gas industry field application. The company’s paper, Developing a Hydraulic Fracturing Pump Controller, describes a real-time system with built-in operator safety procedures for monitoring and controlling a hydraulic oil-well fracturing pump under hazardous environmental conditions, in which pressures can exceed 15,000 pounds per square inch at an injection rate of more than 10 barrels per minute.Using LabView to program the FPGA in CompactRIO hardware, the team built an affordable system that met stringent performance, price, and time-to-market requirements.