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Heimdallr is a package for simplifying instrument control. It is designed to build off of libraries like pyvisa and pyvisa-py and provide a complete ecosystem for instrument automation. As a brief example of what this can look like in its simplest form, here’s an example script which connects to an instrument, resets it, then adjusts and reads some basic settings:

 1from heimdallr.all import *
 2
 3# Create log object
 4log = plf.LogPile()
 5
 6# Create NRX Driver
 7nrx = RohdeSchwarzNRX("TCPIP0::192.168.0.10::INSTR", log)
 8
 9# Preset device
10nrx.preset()
11
12# Get meas frequency
13nrx.set_meas_frequency(1e9)
14fmeas = nrx.get_meas_frequency()

One of the key components of Heimdallr is a set of instrument drivers, one of which, the RohdeSchwarzNRX class, was seen above. However, Heimdallr is more than just a collection of driver classes. Some of its key features include:

  • Instrument API standardization: Drivers inherit from category classes, guaranteeing that all instruments of the same category (ie. all oscilloscopes) will share a common API.

  • Networking: In addition to directly connecting to and interfacing with your instruments, you can optionally use Heimdallr’s networking classes to remotely access your instruments. This works by connecting multiple clients to a single server program over an AES-encrypted network. Typically one client would interface with the instrument drivers, while the other clients can be used to monitor or adjust experiments remotely.

  • Autmoatic Rich Logging: Because Heimdallr’s core use-case concerns scientific experiments, robust and thorough logging is crucial. Heimdallr automates this via the pylogfile library. library and records every command sent to the instruments. Logs can be saved in the binary and open-source HDF format, which can be viewed and analyzed usign the lumberjack command line tool.

  • Ease of Creating New Drivers: The instrument category classes automate much of the work involved in creating a driver, meaning you only need to focus on finding the right SCPI commands to create any new drivers you need.

  • (Work in progress) GUIs: GUI widgets for specific instrument categories make it easy to control or monitor your experiments.

Installation

Heimdallr can be installed via pip using

pip install heimdallr-py

Documentation

Contents:

Indices and tables