The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 21, 2002
Filed:
Apr. 20, 1998
National Instruments Corporation, Austin, TX (US);
Abstract
A USB-based data acquisition system including virtual buffer software which increases USB data transfer rates with minimal changes to DAQ driver level software. The virtual buffer software operates to receive or intercept calls made by the DAQ driver level software to acquire data from the device, wherein the DAQ driver level software is designed to read the data from the device one sample at a time from the device. The virtual buffer software intercepts the call and requests the data in bulk packets from the device. The virtual buffer software then stores the received packets of data in a virtual buffer or virtual FIFO maintained in computer system memory. The DAQ driver level software then obtains the data from the computer system memory using much faster transfers. The virtual buffer software emulates operation of the device, including generation of interrupts and responses to status register reads, thus “fooling” the DAQ driver level software into thinking the data is being acquired from the device. Thus, the present invention allows for much faster data transfers, while requiring minimal or no changes to the existing DAQ driver level software.