Agilent is now shipping LXI IEEE-1588 demonstration kits to members of the LXI Consortium to help them design interoperable instruments and to further develop the IEEE-1588 standard. Agilent Laboratories developed the kit for its own LXI research and development, which is a LAN-based platform for automated test systems. The platform enables several instruments to synchronize their clocks up 10,000 times more closely than if they simply used network time protocol (NTP), the technique typically used to synchronize clocks over Ethernet.
“IEEE 1588 is a key part of the LXI specification, and the LXI IEEE-1588 demonstration kits give members a big head start toward implementing it,” said Bob Rennard, LXI Consortium president. “The kits demonstrate Agilent’s commitment to developing the LXI standard and supporting the collaboration of the LXI Consortium. All members of the consortium benefit from the ongoing research of Agilent Labs.”
The LXI standard defines small, modular instruments using low-cost, open-standard LAN (Ethernet) as the system backbone. LXI was developed to offer the size and integration advantages of modular instruments without the cost and constraints of card-cage architectures. The standard will evolve to take advantage of current and future LAN capabilities that go well beyond legacy test and measurement connectivity capabilities.
For more information about LXI, visit the LXI consortium’s website. For more information about Agilent, visit the Agilent website.
