© Emona Instruments Pty Ltd Introduction & Conventions i
Introduction
The SIGEx™ Signal Processing Experimenter Add-in Module for NI EL IS™ I/II/II+
SIGEx, or Signal Experimenter, as its name implies, is makes it possible for students to experience
at first and t e interaction between t e t eory and mat ematics of digital signal processing, circuit
analysis and signals & systems t eory, wit t e real world of ardware. T e Emona SIGEx add-in
module is fully integrated wit t e NI ELVIS platform and NI LabVIEW environment.
Equipment Required
Experiments make use of t e Emona SIGEx signal
processing board toget er wit t e NI ELVIS platform
and NI LabVIEW running on a PC. T e functionality and
range of t e virtual instrumentation available depends on
t e NI DAQ t at is coupled wit NI ELVIS platform.
IMPORTANT NOTE CONCERNING DAQ SELECTION
FOR NI ELVIS I
Ideally t e NI-DAQ s ould ave an oscilloscope sample
rate of 1MS/s or more, suc as t e USB-6251 or equivalent, wit 2 c annels. If t e NI-DAQ being
used as only one c annel, t en experiments will not be able to be completed succcessfully.
SIGEx™ bringing BLOCK DIAGRAMS to life
Using t e SIGEx board students bring to life t e block diagrams t at populate signal processing
textbooks. A “block diagram” is a simplified representation of a more complex circuit. An example is
s own in Figure 1 below.
Block diagrams are used to explain t e principle of
operation of electronic systems (like a sampling system,
for example) wit out worrying about ow t e circuit
works. Eac block represents a part of t e circuit t at
performs a separate task and is named according to
w at it does. Examples of common blocks in
communications equipment include t e
adder
,
multiplier,
oscillator
, and
so on.
Didactic philosophy behind the ETT-311 SIGEx™ System
– Emona TIMS™ and the “Block Diagram” approach
T e Emona SIGEx signal processing board draws on a well establis ed experimental met odology t at
brings to life t e “universal language” of signal & systems, t e BLOCK DIAGRAM.
T e Emona SIGEx add-in module, illustrated below, as a collection of functional blocks (called
modules
) t at t e students can patc toget er to implement dozens of signal processing block
diagrams
NI EL IS and SIGEx in use
Figure 1 Example of a
Block Diagram
