General Toolbox Information

For general information about the Instrument Control Toolbox™, type:

instrhwinfo

        MATLABVersion: '7.0 (R14)'
  SupportedInterfaces: {'gpib'  'serial'  'visa'  'tcpip'  'udp'}
     SupportedDrivers: {'matlab'  'vxipnp'  'ivi'}
          ToolboxName: 'Instrument Control Toolbox'
       ToolboxVersion: '2.0 (R14)'

The SupportedInterfaces and SupportedDrivers fields list the interfaces and drivers supported by the toolbox, and not necessarily those installed on your computer.

Interface Information

To display information about a specific interface, you supply the interface name as an argument to instrhwinfo. The interface name can be gpib, serial, tcpip, udp, or visa.

For the GPIB and VISA interfaces, the information includes installed adaptors. For the serial port interface, the information includes the available ports. For the TCP/IP and UDP interfaces, the information includes the local host address. For example, to display the GPIB interface information:

out = instrhwinfo('gpib')
out =

    InstalledAdaptors: {'ics' 'ni'}
       JarFileVersion: 'Version 2.0 (R14)'

The InstalledAdaptors field indicates that ICS Electronics™ (ICS) and National Instruments™ drivers are installed. Therefore, you can communicate with instruments using GPIB controllers from these vendors.

Adaptor Information

To display information about a specific installed adaptor, you supply the interface name and the adaptor name as arguments to instrhwinfo.

The returned information describes the adaptor, the vendor driver, and the object constructors. For example, to display information for the National Instruments GPIB adaptor,

ghwinfo = instrhwinfo('gpib','ni')

ghwinfo = 

             AdaptorDllName: [1x82 char]
          AdaptorDllVersion: 'Version 2.0 (R14)'
                AdaptorName: 'NI'
          InstalledBoardIds: 0
      ObjectConstructorName: {'gpib('ni', 0, 2);'}
              VendorDllName: 'gpib-32.dll'
    VendorDriverDescription: 'NI-488'

The ObjectConstructorName field provides the syntax for creating a GPIB object for the National Instruments adaptor. In this example, the GPIB controller has board index 0 and the instrument has primary address 2.

g = gpib('ni',0,2);

To display information for the Tektronix^® VISA adaptor,

vhwinfo = instrhwinfo('visa','tek')
vhwinfo = 

             AdaptorDllName: [1x83 char]
          AdaptorDllVersion: 'Version 2.0 (R14 Beta 1)'
                AdaptorName: 'TEK'
           AvailableChassis: []
       AvailableSerialPorts: {2x1 cell}
          InstalledBoardIds: 0
      ObjectConstructorName: {3x1 cell}
                SerialPorts: {2x1 cell}
              VendorDllName: 'visa32.dll'
    VendorDriverDescription: 'Tektronix VISA Driver'
        VendorDriverVersion: 2.0500

The available VISA object constructor names are shown below.

vhwinfo.ObjectConstructorName
ans = 

    'visa('tek', 'ASRL1::INSTR');'
    'visa('tek', 'ASRL2::INSTR');'
    'visa('tek', 'GPIB0::1::INSTR');'

The ObjectConstructorName field provides the syntax for creating a VISA object for the GPIB and serial port interfaces. In this example, the GPIB controller has board index 0 and the instrument has primary address 1.

vg = visa('tek','GPIB0::1::INSTR');

Instrument Object Information

To display information about a specific instrument object, you supply the object as an argument to instrhwinfo. For example, to display information for the GPIB object created in the (Adaptor Information), type:

ghwinfo = instrhwinfo(g)
ghwinfo = 

             AdaptorDllName: [1x82 char]
          AdaptorDllVersion: 'Version 2.0 (R14)'
                AdaptorName: 'NI'
              VendorDllName: 'gpib-32.dll'
    VendorDriverDescription: 'NI-488'

To display information for the VISA-GPIB object created in the (Adaptor Information), type:

vghwinfo = instrhwinfo(vg)
vghwinfo = 

             AdaptorDllName: [1x83 char]
          AdaptorDllVersion: 'Version 2.0 (R14)'
                AdaptorName: 'TEK'
              VendorDllName: 'visa32.dll'
    VendorDriverDescription: 'Tektronix VISA Driver'
        VendorDriverVersion: 2.0500

Alternatively, you can return hardware information via the Workspace browser by right-clicking an instrument object, and selecting Display Hardware Info from the context menu.

Installed Driver Information

To display information about a supported driver type, you supply the driver type as an argument to instrhwinfo. For example, to display information for the IVI^® configuration, type:

instrhwinfo('ivi')
ans = 
              LogicalNames: {'MyIviCLogical'  'MyScope'  'TekScope'}
                ProgramIDs: {'TekScope.TekScope'}
                   Modules: {'ag3325b'}
ConfigurationServerVersion: '1.3.1.0'
ConfigurationStoreLocation: 'D:\Apps\IVI\Data\IviConfigurationStore.xml'
               IVIRootPath: 'D:\Apps\IVI\'

To display information about a specific driver or resource, you supply the driver name in addition to the type as an argument to instrhwinfo. For example, to display information about the ag3325b VXIplug&play driver:

instrhwinfo('vxipnp', 'ag3325b')
ans = 
     Manufacturer: 'Agilent Technologies'
            Model: 'Agilent 3325B Synthesizer/Func. Gen.'
    DriverVersion: '4.1'
    DriverDllName: 'C:\VXIPNP\WINNT\bin\ag3325b_32.dll'

Hardware

Expand the Hardware node in the tree to list the supported interfaces.

Right-click the Hardware node to scan for instrument hardware. The interface nodes expand to include entries for each instrument found by the scan.

Installed Drivers

The Test & Measurement Tool can display your installed drivers. The three categories of drivers are MATLAB Instrument Drivers, VXIplug&play Drivers, and IVI, as shown below under the expanded Instrument Drivers node.

Right-click the Instrument Drivers node to scan for installed drivers. The driver-type nodes expand to include entries for each driver found by the scan. Note that for MATLAB instrument drivers and VXIplug&play drivers, the installation of a driver requires only the presence of a driver file. For IVI, installation involves an IVI configuration store; see Viewing the IVI Configuration Store.

The Test & Measurement Tool GUI includes embedded help. For further details about the Test & Measurement Tool and its capabilities, see Test & Measurement Tool Overview.

Command-Line Configuration

You can use command-line functions to examine and configure your IVI configuration store. To see what IVI configuration store elements are available, use instrhwinfo to identify the existing logical names.

instrhwinfo('ivi')
ans = 
              LogicalNames: {'MainScope', 'FuncGen'}
                ProgramIDs: {'TekScope.TekScope','Agilent33250'}
                   Modules: {'ag3325b', 'hpe363xa'}
ConfigurationServerVersion: '1.3.1.0'
ConfigurationStoreLocation: 'C:\Program Files\IVI\Data\
                             IviConfigurationStore.xml'
               IVIRootPath: 'C:\Program Files\IVI\'

Use instrhwinfo with a logical name as an argument to see the details of that logical name's configuration.

instrhwinfo('ivi','MainScope')
ans = 
            DriverSession: 'TekScope.DriverSession'
            HardwareAsset: 'TekScope.Hardware'
           SoftwareModule: 'TekScope.Software'
     IOResourceDescriptor: 'GPIB0::13::INSTR'
SupportedInstrumentModels: 'TekScope 5000, 6000 and 7000 series'
        ModuleDescription: 'TekScope software module desc'
           ModuleLocation: ''

You create and configure elements in the IVI configuration store by using the IVI configuration store object functions add, commit, remove, and update. For further details, see the reference pages for these functions.

Using the Test & Measurement Tool

You can use the Test & Measurement Tool to examine or configure your IVI configuration store. To open the tool, type:

tmtool

Expand the Instrument Drivers node and click IVI.

You see a tab for each type of IVI configuration store element. This figure shows the available driver sessions in the current IVI configuration store. For the selected driver session, you can use any available software module or hardware asset. This figure shows the configuration for the driver session TekScope.DriverSession, which uses the software module TekScope.Software and the hardware asset TekScope.Hardware.