COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE FUNCTIONALITY AND COST EFFECTIVENESS OF ELECTRONIC LABORATORY VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTATIONS

摘要

The need in electrical engineering education and the advancement in electronic instrumentation have propelled development of various virtual instruments of multiple functionalities, with a prototype board and/or integrated data acquisition. As a result, laboratories at universities can do more in both the undergraduate education and graduate level research trainings with limited space and resources. However, for department and researchers looking to choose the most suitable protoboard, a comparative evaluation is not yet available. This paper reports evaluation results in comparison of several excellent boards, including National Instruments' ELVIS II+ USB Educational Design and Prototyping Platform and Digilent's Electronics Explorer Board for their functionalities, ease of use, and cost effectiveness. This analysis will be useful to help educators and other users make the most logical choices based on the emphasis of necessary features and availability of the resources.