What's the Difference Between Modular and Rack-Mount Instruments?

摘要

Assembling a test system at one time involved the acquisition of a 19-in.-wide rack-mount enclosure and many different rack-mount, benchtop instruments. Separate benchtop instruments, such as signal generators, spectrum analyzers, vector network analyzers (VNAs), frequency counters, and power meters, would be installed in the rack to form a test system that might then require specialized software to make everything work together. Today, an entire test system can be assembled by sliding compact instrument modules into a single chassis, most often based on the PCI extensions for Instrumentation (PXI) or PXI Express (PXIe) modular formats.