Using IVI drivers to achieve instrument interchangeability

Instrument interchangeability has been a desire of test engineers for many years. When developing long-life systems that need to be maintained for more than 20 years, it is important to have the ability to exchange instruments in those systems when they become damaged or obsolete [1]. Interchangeable Virtual Instrument (IVI) is a new test and measurement instrument driver standard introduced by the IVI Foundation. The IVI Foundation's goal is to create a driver standard that allows a high degree of instrument interchangeability while still providing high-performance. This paper presents guide methods of using IVI drivers to achieve instrument interchangeability. The paper begins by reviewing the development of instrument drivers and introducing the specification and architecture of IVI system. The emphasis of the paper is on expressing how to achieve instrument interchangeability with IVI-C and IVI-COM drivers and describing how IVI drivers and associated IVI configuration server are used to develop a system. The corresponding examples are shown. The paper provides a configuration utility allowing configuration information to be viewed, added, modified, and deleted as needed in the configuration store. Finally, the paper summarizes the minimum requirements for interchangeability with IVI class drivers.