State Machine and producer consumer design patterns

Hi!
In my application I am using state machine(for top level VI) and producer consumer(for subVIs) design patterns throught out.
If there is no activity on the front panel for 1min then the ideal state is invoked. Following are the situation of the ideal state:
1. It checks for any hardware present on the network . If no hardware is found on the network within 1 min then the application and LabVIEW exits.
2. While the ideal state checks for the hardware, and user clicks on any front panel button then it should exit the ideal state. The control
should be in the respective button state.
I am able to achive the point#1 mentioned above but could not get the point #2 to work. I am including the snap shot of
the state machine(default case) and prouducer consumer(deafualt state).
Each screen has the concept of the ideal state. The only additional step in the subVIs is that when the ideal state is reached and the time has expired then it will close the subVIfront panel.It will go to the exit state of the Main(top level) VI. Thus closing the application and quitting LabVIEW.
Any ideas or suggestions. Will multithreading and notifiers help?
TIA
Rachana
Attachments:
Sanpshot_Of_Design.zip ‏75 KB

Hi Rachana,
I was thinking about using event structures wherein there would an event case that would handle any value change event for any of the buttons on the front panel. But before suggesting that, I would need to know more about the Ideal State subvi( more specifically, how is it checking for any hardware present on the network and where is the one minute wait coming from?).
Please feel free to respond to this post with your questions/comments.
Regards,
Ankita A.

Similar Messages

Producer/Consumer Design Pattern with Classes

I'm starting a new project which involves acquiring data from various pieces of equipment using a GPIB port. I thought this would be a good time to start using Classes. I created a GPIB class which contains member data of: Address, Open State, Error; with member vis such as Set Address, Get Address, Open, Close...general actions that all GPIB devices need to do. I then created a child class for a specific instrument (Agilent N1912 Power Meter for this example) which inherits from the GPIB class but also adds member data such as Channel A power and Channel B power and the associated Member Functions to obtain the data from the hardware. This went fine and I created a Test vi for verfication utilizing a typical Event Structure architecture.
However, in other applications (without classes) I typically use the Producer/Consumer Design Pattern with Event Structure so that the main loop is not delayed by any hardware interaction. My queue data is a cluster of an "action" enum and a variant to pass data. Is it OK to use this pattern with classes? I created a vi and it works fine and attached is a png (of 1 case) of it.
Are there any problems doing it this way?
Jason

JTerosky wrote:
I'm starting a new project which involves acquiring data from various pieces of equipment using a GPIB port. I thought this would be a good time to start using Classes. I created a GPIB class which contains member data of: Address, Open State, Error; with member vis such as Set Address, Get Address, Open, Close...general actions that all GPIB devices need to do. I then created a child class for a specific instrument (Agilent N1912 Power Meter for this example) which inherits from the GPIB class but also adds member data such as Channel A power and Channel B power and the associated Member Functions to obtain the data from the hardware. This went fine and I created a Test vi for verfication utilizing a typical Event Structure architecture.
However, in other applications (without classes) I typically use the Producer/Consumer Design Pattern with Event Structure so that the main loop is not delayed by any hardware interaction. My queue data is a cluster of an "action" enum and a variant to pass data. Is it OK to use this pattern with classes? I created a vi and it works fine and attached is a png (of 1 case) of it.
Are there any problems doing it this way?
Including the error cluster as part of the private data is something I have never seen done and ... well I'll have to think about that one.
Ben
Ben Rayner
I am currently active on.. MainStream Preppers
Rayner's Ridge is under construction

Producer/Consumer Design Pattern + DAQmx + Event Structure

Dear community users,
at the moment I try to implement the Producer/Consumer Design Pattern into my current project. For this purpose I am trying to make a "minimal-example" in which I use the Producer/Consumer Design Pattern for the data acquisition and analysis (display in GraphXY, calculation etc..) process. In the Producer Loop I perform the data readings via DAQmxRead.VI and in the Consumer Loop, in this example only, I display the data in a GraphXY. At the same time I want to control the data acquisition via an Event Structure, for example Start Measurement/Stop Measurement Buttons. To configure the measurement time, for example if the user only wants to measure 150 sec, I use the Time Out Event of the Event Structure. This is a technique which is often used, when data acquisition and Event Structures are used at the same time (Excuse me if this is wrong!). Due to understand the Producer/Consumer Design Pattern I looked up in the Template\Framework of LabVIEW.
In the attachment you will find my "minimal-example", which -sadly-, not working. What should I do ?
Thank you.
Best regards,
tugrul öztürk
Attachments:
daqEngine_PCP.vi ‏35 KB

Your VI will never stop due to the Ok Button that stops the producer loop is read OUTSIDE of the loop. Add an event case for it.
Move the Start and the Ok Button inside of their respective event cases. This will allow the latch to reset when they are read.
Change the Ok Button to a stop button.
Use a Greater Or Equal instead of Equal for the measurement time comparison. What if somebody randomly changes it to 0 on you? Again, you will never stop.
Is the DAQ only supposed to read for "Measurement Time". Right now, it constantly reads. So if you don't use the DAQmx Read, you will get a buffer overflow error. You need to put the DAQmx Start Task inside of the Start event case and then the Stop DAQmx Task inside of the Timeout event case when the measurement time is exceeded. You should also perform the read regardless inside of the Timeout event case.
I HATE telling the consumer loop to stop by destroying the queue. You can look data that way. Instead, send something an empty array. In the consumer, check for an empty array. If it is empty, stop. Destroy the queue only AFTER BOTH LOOPS HAVE COMPLETED.
You should also report your errors in some way. Simple Error Handler at the minimum.
Since you are using Continous Samples, don't limit the buffer. Leave the Samples per Channel unwired on the DAQmx Timing VI.
There are only two ways to tell somebody thanks: Kudos and Marked Solutions
Unofficial Forum Rules and Guidelines

Producer consumer design pattern

Hello,
I am trying to build a simple program that does the following:
1. when program starts, the indicator is initialized to -999
2. when Measure button is clicked, the indicator shows random number continuously.
3. when Save button is clicked, the indicator shows 1
I use the event-based producer-consumer design pattern and it works great. However, I cannot find a way to allow the CONTINUOUSLY generating of random number when Measure is clicked. Can someone shed a light on it? Thanks a lot for the help.
Attachments:
CommandList.ctl ‏6 KB
Untitled 1.vi ‏25 KB

One simple way to do it is to use the Timeout event case. You can modify the timeout value based on what events have occurred. See attached mod.
Not saying this is the best way. Kind of depends on where the program goes from here.
Attachments:
Untitled 1-2 MOD.vi ‏27 KB

Could Buffer replace the Queue in Producer/Consumer Design Pattern

Hello,
I have a question that the task of Buffer is to store the data and the queue is also of the same so could we use the Buffer inplace of queue in a Producer/Consumer Design Pattern.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

No, those buffer examples are not nearly equal to a queue and will never ever "replace" queues in producer/consumer.
The most important advantage of queues for producer/consumer (which none of the other buffer mechanics share) is that it works eventbased to notify the reader that data is available. So if you would simply replace the queue by overly elaborate buffer mechanics as you attached to your last post, you will lose a great deal of the the purpose using producer/consumer.
So, to compare both mechanics:
- Queue works eventbased, whereas the buffer example does not.
- Queue has to allocate memory during runtime if more elements are written to the queue than dequeued. This is also true for the buffer (it has to be resized).
- Since the buffer is effectively simply an array with overhead, memory management is getting slow and messy with increasing memory fragmentation. Queues perform way better here (but have their limits there too).
- The overhead for the buffer (array handling) has to be implemented manually. Queue functions encapsulate all necessary functionality you will ever need. So queues do have a simple API, whereas the buffer has not.
- Since the buffer is simply an array, you will have a hard time sharing the content in two parallel running loops. You will need to either implement additional overhead using data value references to manage the buffer or waste lots of memory by using mechanics like variables. In addition to wasting memory, you will presumably run into race conditions so do not even think about this.
So this leads to four '+' for the queue and only one point where "buffer" equals the queue.
i hope, this clears things up a bit.
Norbert
CEO: What exactly is stopping us from doing this?
Expert: Geometry
Marketing Manager: Just ignore it.

State machine VS producer consumer architecture - Time Analysis

After learning various methods to program efficiently and learn how to use SM and Producer consumer. I built a program to control stepper motor in both these techniques.
Here is the RESULT. As we can see a simple state machine without any complicated producer consumer technique performs faster than the second one.
I am not sure which is still the best based on performance and optimization. Please advise which one should I keep and why.
Abhilash S Nair
Research Assistant @ Photonic Devices and Systems lab
[ LabView professional Development System - Version 11.0 - 32-bit ]
LabView Gear:
1. NI PXI-7951R & NI 5761
2. The Imaging Source USB 3.0 monochrome camera with trigger : DMK 23UM021
OPERATING SYSTEM - [ MS windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP-1 ]
CPU - [Intel Core i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40Ghz ]
MEMORY - [ 16.0 GB RAM ]
GPU - [ NVIDIA GeForce GT 530 ]

This is with state machine alone
Abhilash S Nair
Research Assistant @ Photonic Devices and Systems lab
[ LabView professional Development System - Version 11.0 - 32-bit ]
LabView Gear:
1. NI PXI-7951R & NI 5761
2. The Imaging Source USB 3.0 monochrome camera with trigger : DMK 23UM021
OPERATING SYSTEM - [ MS windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP-1 ]
CPU - [Intel Core i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40Ghz ]
MEMORY - [ 16.0 GB RAM ]
GPU - [ NVIDIA GeForce GT 530 ]
Attachments:
Control 1.ctl ‏6 KB
Control 2.ctl ‏6 KB
Motor-UNI_Directiona Dev 3-TIME_ANALYSIS-2.vi ‏54 KB

Register event in producer consumer design pattern

Hello wire workers,
I am fairly green when it comes to dynamic event registration, so my understanding of it is probably quite flawed, but what I have implemented seems to work fine.
Assuming a fairly typical queued producer/consumer state machine architecture.
Up till now, I have done the dynamic event registration outside (i.e. to the left of) the UI loop, so all events get registered before the UI loop starts to run.
My question is:
How can I register events from inside one of the consumer loops? I cannot wire it...
Maybe an example will make my scenario more clear.
I have a DAQ loop (queued state machine). In the init state of this loop I want to register a digital input such that changes on a line are handled by my main event structure (in the totally separate UI loop). Is this possible?
I look forward to hearing positive answers
nrp
CLA

The best way to send data from the Consumer Loop to the Producer Loop is through User Events. What you will want to do is create a User Event whose data type is the registered DAQmx event refnum. Then when you register the DAQmx event in the Consumer Loop, fire the User Event with that new refnum and update the registration in the Producer Loop. That's probably hard to wrap your head around in words, so I'll attach a dummy example and pic below. Hope this helps!
VI Saved in LV85.
Message Edited by Jarrod S. on 04-21-2008 12:54 PM
Jarrod S.
National Instruments
Attachments:
DAQmx Event.vi ‏30 KB
DAQmx Event Pic.PNG ‏38 KB

Producer Consumer with a state machine within the consumer

Hi All,
I have been trying to develop a data acquisition system with the producer consumer architecture. To the left of the two main loops I initialize the serial port and any constants and variables im using. I also have an obtain queue VI needed for enqueue and dequeue. Then in the producer loop i have a state machine. The first state is where I wait for a button press on the front panel to write a GO signal on the serial line which will tell the device connected to the serial port to begin sampling data. After this button press I go into the next state which is called my read state.
In the read state I use a property node to read all of the available bytes at the serial port and then enqueue this collected data into a queue. The state machine then is directed to continously go to the read state again and collect more data.
Now this is where my dilemma is...... The consumer loop has the dequeue VI inside it and after this VI i have a state machine (while loop and case structure) which contains the following states
1. Build Array - build an array from the dequeue element and if there is any left over data from the parsing states it will build an array with the left over data and the dequeued data
2. Determine packet type - this state looks for the packet type byte(not necessarily the first byte in the message) and also check the next byte (packet length) to ensure that I am at the begininng of this chunk of data. This state may be a little slow because there can be three different packet types and based on this byte and the packet length it may have to search the array several time to find the valid starting point. This state also determine the next state to go to based on the packet type.
3 packet type 1 parsing - parse data and store the remaining data it leftOver array. Go to exit state.
4 packet type 2 parsing - "" ""
5 packet type 3 parsing - "" ""
6 exit - leave this state machine and fall back to the consumer while loop.
After it exit I think it should fall back to the consumer while loop and dequeue more data and enter the state machine again to build a new array with the dequeued data and leftover data. It seems to work when I trace the execution using the Highlight execution feature, however when I run this all at full speed, it seems to go into the consumers 1st and 2nd states back and forth and not completely go through the state machine.
I tried adding in a delay in the producer loop to give the consumer loop time, but I didnt notice any difference. Is it possible that my dequeue element is retreiving more data while im still in the state machine, causing the execution to leave the state machine before it finished all states?
Is there a better approach to take to solve this problem. Basically I need to read data at a 1,000,000 baudrate and parse it as quickly as possible so that I can break it up into 3 different packet types, write the data to a file, and graph the actual data (header info removed) in realtime. I need to also ensure that I am not losing any of the collected data. Data loss cannnot occur.

A couple of things more to go along with Ben's pointers:
You convert your data from a string, to a U8 array, to a Hex string array in the producer loop, then convert back to a integer to determine what to do with it. In the process, you create two or three copies of your data, slowing yourself down quite a bit. The code would be quite a bit more efficient if you left the data as a U8 array. You can change the format of the controls and indicators to show hex values instead of integer by right clicking on them and selecting Format and Precision...
Your search code is fairly inefficient. I made a whack at making it a bit better. See attachment below.
If you continue to run into race conditions, you can debug them using a calls to the Windows debug write sprinkled liberally about your code. Check out the post here for more information.
Don't let your lack of format LabVIEW training stop you. The biggest thing to get is the data flow paradigm (aka data is wires, not registers). Once you get past that and learn how to pass data around using shift registers, queues, events, etc, you are most of the way to mastering LabVIEW. The rest is just learning the plethora of functionality LabVIEW gives you (yes, I have reimplemented LabVIEW native code more than once in the process of learning).
Let us know if you need more help.
This account is no longer active. Contact ShadesOfGray for current posts and information.
Attachments:
serialUtil_V3_DFG.zip ‏137 KB

Producer/ Consumer Design error?

I am learning labview as I go and little errors keep stumping me. I set up the producer/consumer design and it reads the two while loops like I want. However, when I stop the program to save it to the write to measure it gives me an error saying invalid input and highlights the dequeue. I have to queues running (one for a button and one for data) and they both do this. I tried connecting it different ways but its always the same error. Any ideas?
Attachments:
2whlloopprgrm.vi ‏392 KB

Dublicate post
Stick to one post at a time. Do not post the same question on two different threads.

Business delegate and Session facade design patterns

Does any one tell me, what is the difference between business delegate and session facade design patterns.

1. Session Facade decouples client code from Entity beans introducing session bean as a middle layer while Business Delegate decouples client code from EJB layer ( Session beans).
2. SF reduces network overhead while BD reduces maintenance overhead.
3. In SF any change in Session bean would make client code change.
While in DB client is totally separate from Session bean because BD layer insulate client from Session beans(EJB layer).
3. In only SF scenario, Client coder has to know about EJB programming but BD pattern no EJB specialization needed.
4.SF emphasizes on separation of Verb, Noun scenario while BD emphasizes on separation of client(presentable) and EJB layer.
Anybody pls suggest more differences ?

Discrepancy between execution time of state machine and flat code

I am trying to optimize the performance of my application, and I've found that the same code executed as a case in a state machine, and flat on the block diagram takes a dramatically different amount of time to run. I'm trying to figure out what I'm missing here. The picture shows a test vi I threw together (the next post will have the diagram image for the "Add New" case of my Buffer Engine.vi - basically the same as what is in frame 5). The fifth frame in the sequence is what I am concerned about. It shows that executing the case in the state machine takes ~700ms, and flat, ~113ms.
Any thoughts?
Chris
Attachments:
Test Times.jpg ‏124 KB

Thanks for the suggestion Altenbach. I had to insert a for loop to replace array subset indivually for each column of new data to place in the buffer, but even with the extra processing, the result was about 80% faster. I guess I'll have to come up with a system to track where to place the data (it was convenient to always drop the data at the end..), but that shouldn't be an issue.
However, this suggestion doesn't address the original concern. The same array resizing was going on in both the subvi and the sequence frame. This improvement should increase the performance of each, but doesn't explain the difference.
As an aside, I contemplated using a queue, but without the ability to dequeue from both the beginning and the end, I don't see how I can use them for this. I want to trash the oldest data, not hold up the acquisition. In any case, I don't think it would be faster because the memory isn't pre-allocated. Now I am considering just storing the data in a control, and passing the reference as necessary. The question is, is reading the value from a control faster than reading from a shift register?
Thanks again.
Chris

Difference between Session Facade and Business Delegate design patterns

Can someone tell me the differences between Session Facade and Business Delegate design patterns

1. Session Facade decouples client code from Entity beans introducing session bean as a middle layer while Business Delegate decouples client code from EJB layer ( Session beans).
2. SF reduces network overhead while BD reduces maintenance overhead.
3. In SF any change in Session bean would make client code change.
While in DB client is totally separate from Session bean because BD layer insulate client from Session beans(EJB layer).
3. In only SF scenario, Client coder has to know about EJB programming but BD pattern no EJB specialization needed.
4.SF emphasizes on separation of Verb, Noun scenario while BD emphasizes on separation of client(presentable) and EJB layer.
Anybody pls suggest more differences ?

Recipe Management Using State Machines and DAQ Assistants

I am writing LabVIEW code to control a conversion process for up to 4 devices on one apparatus.
The operator will select from these 4 devices which ones will go through a conversion process. Therefore - they can select some or all of the devices to go through the process. The process is the same for all 4 devices. The difference between the 4 are the digital outputs used for the conversion process.
Clearly a state machine is applicable. However, I would like to "reuse" the process conversion code of the state machine by creating a separate recipe for each device and merely change the digital outputs (their physical location) for the device under conversion. Presently I have DAQ Assistants controlling digital ouputs for the conversion of one device. Is it possible to "reuse" the code by creating a recipe or a lookup table to reassign the DAQ Assistants to their proper physical location (the digital output lines) for the device under conversion?
I could - copy and paste the code, go into the process and reassign every DAQ Assistant to the correct physical channel of each digital output for the other 3 devices. I was curious if there was a more efficient way.
I see documentation online for recipes; however they are dated 2006. I thought there may be some updated examples.
Using:
LabVIEW 2011
cDAQ-9188 chassis

Hi MgDAQ,
DAQ Assistant is a quick way to start acquiring data, however it's not the most efficient.
Everything that DAQ Assistant does can be acompished with basic DAQ functions on the
Measurement I/O -> NI-DAQmx pallete. For example, you can use DAQmx-Create Channel.vi and
a Channel Constant to select the channel from which you want to acquire data.
To get started with using the DAQmx functions you can browse through Hardware I/O examples in the Example Finder.
Open up a new LabVIEW VI and then go to Help -> Find Examples -> Hardware Input and Output [folder] -> DAQmx -> Digital Measurements
Now, as you probably know, copying and pasting code is inefficient and it's not a good programming practice. So what I would do is create the code for your conversion process and then simply change the channel constant to read the digital output you need.
Mikhail
RF Toolkits, Product Support Engineer
National Instruments

How can I establish an enum typedef for use with state machines and action engines?

Hey all--
I have an action engine with several instances. Any time that I add a method to the engine, I have to modify all of the calling code to update the constant that determines the method being called. There must be a smarter way to address this problem but my LV experience is insufficient to identify it. Can any of you wiz-bangs tell me if it is possible to make a type def (I can do this) and use it with each instance of the action engine call so that changing any instance also updates the typedef?
Thanks.

Take your enumerator. If it is not a control (ie constant), change it to a control.
Under File Menu, select New > Custom Control.
Move (or copy) your Enum Control to the Custom Control. Change the Control to Strict Type Def (the selection to the right of the wrench). Save it.
(EDIT: ** OOps, the picture shows the wrong one.. sorry**)
Copy that new Strict Type Def control to your code.
See images below.
OR.. If you're using LV8.x, and using a project, I would recomment that you do it from within your project explorer. Simply insert a new "Control". The rest of the steps are similar, except that you can insert it from your project.
R
Message Edited by JoeLabView on 07-08-2008 06:47 PM
Attachments:
TypeDef.PNG ‏33 KB

Guide or Information to Create State Machine workflow on SharePoint Designer 2013

Hi All,
I am currently working on a workflow that requires 5 approvers who can approve, reject or review and submit again.
In a situation where an approval is given, the flow goes to the next approver.
Where it is Review and Submit Again, the control is transferred to the originator who started the the workflow and the entire process restarts
When it is a reject, the workflow stops.
Kindly advice on how to get this working.
Best Regards,
Ifeatu
Ifeatu Osegbo

Hi
Ifeatu ,
For achieving your demand, you can take steps as below:
Add a “Start a task process” action in your workflow.
Click “these users” and Start a Task Process edit page will pop up.
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Go to workflow setting page, select “Start workflow automatically when an item is created” and “Start workflow automatically when an item is changed” for the Start Options
setting.
Best Regards,
Eric
Eric Tao
TechNet Community Support

State Machine and producer consumer design patterns

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