MULTIMEAS (Multi-Measurement Toolkit for Lab Instrumentation)

MULTIMEAS (Multi-Measure) is a software package for the general purpose of data acquisition, plotting, and analysis software package for laboratory instrumentation. Although laboratory equipment often comes with some limited data acquisition software, this software is of limited use. There is no integrated laboratory data acquisition software package that can record data from a number of different instruments and perform analytical calculations as the data is calculated. MULTIMEAS was developed to monitor complex experiments by 1) maintaining instrument control, 2) data collection, acquisition, plotting, and analysis, and 3) easy "swapping" of instrumentation for different experiments. By having all the instruments monitored and controlled by a single software package, at one location, this provides the experimenter with more time to perform experiments and understand the data, rather than spending the time monitoring and collecting instrument data. MULTIMEAS is currently being used in the laboratory to monitor a He 3 cryostat with more than 20 instruments for specific heat, and other physical property measurements.

Specifically, the software serves a number of purposes including:

• Identifying instruments connected to an experiment.
• Identification and setup of control parameter instruments (power level, refrigeration, etc.)
• Identification of instruments employed and data sampling rates
• Data that should be modified by calculations and their presentation format
• To create a list of measurements to be taken
• Specifying the number of experimental runs to be made with start-stop times, power levels, etc.
• Experimental data plotting
• Plotting of controlling instrument power, pulse cycles, etc.
• Application of filters, calibration offsets, or other offsets.

The software is easy to use, has a friendly user interface, and is object oriented. The software can be run on a laptop or desktop PC with a minimum of 60 MB RAM, and a 100 MB of storage on the hard disk. Experimental data can be taken at a rate off 100 kS./s. LabVIEW Ver. 7 by National Instruments is needed as complementary software (The base price is about $1,200 with a higher price for more features. Many labs probably already have LabVIEW.) The software also has web capabilities for remote instruments. A manual is available and one can learn to use the software in about one hour. MULTIMEAS already has a variety of instruments currently in the software; and adding new instruments to MULTIMEAS takes about 15 an instrument.

Technical service for any questions could be handled by the author, Andreas Rydh, rydh@anl.gov, on an ad hoc basis, with an understanding that probably no more than 30 minutes of help would be provided. If additional help is needed, the organization could hire the author under a consulting contract or technical service agreement.