A Wireless Instrumentation Control System Based on Low-Cost Single Board Computer Gateways

Nowadays, most of the automatized measurement processes are carried out by VISA (Virtual Instrument Software Architecture) compatible instruments, that execute instructions provided a host computer connected through wired standard buses, as USB (Universal Serial Bus), GPIB (General-Purpose Instrumentation PXI (PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation) or Ethernet. To overcome intrinsic limitations associated to these systems, this work presents an instrumentation control system based on IEEE 802.11 wireless communications standard. Intended instruments having port, port is gateway compact Raspberry Single Board Computer (SBC) and thus instrument can be via Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), easily allowing deployment ad-hoc communication network in working area its connection previously deployed general purpose WiFi network. Developed under Python, operation commands, link protocol, allow two modes provide flexibility: live mode, where commands sent individually from selected instrument; standalone full process entirely downloaded autonomously executed instrumentation. The performance both modes, distance operation, time latencies, operating lifetime battery have been characterized.