Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:09, 18 April 2009

Revision as of 13:09, 18 July 2009

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The '''Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments (SCPI)''' (often pronounced "skippy") defines a standard set of commands to control programmable test and measurement devices in [[instrumentation]] systems.

The SCPI Standard specifies a [[command structure]] and [[syntax]] for programmable instruments control. The physical communications link, such as [[IEEE-488| GPIB (IEEE-488) ]], [[RS232]], [[USB]], [[VXIbus]] etc, is NOT defined by SCPI. SCPI also includes standard command sets for several classes of instruments, e.g. [[power supply|power supplies]], loads, and measurement devices such as voltmeters[[voltmeter]]s and [[oscilloscopes]]. A predecessor of SCPI, but with more limited scope, was [[IEEE-488|IEEE 488.2]] in 1987.

SCPI commands are [[ASCII]] textual strings, which are sent to the instrument over the physical layer, such as GPIB.

Two examples: With the command ''SYSTem:COMMunicate:SERial:BAUD 2400'' the [[Baud| baudrate]] of an [[RS232]] interface can be set to 2400 bit/s. With the command ''SYSTem:COMMunicate:SERial:BAUD?'' the current baudrate of an RS232 interface can be queried. Commands can be abbreviated to their upper case parts, for instance ''SYST:COMM:SER:BAUD?''.

Some instrument manufacturers, notably [[Agilent]], [[Berkeley Nucleonics]] and [[Tektronix]], have implemented SCPI on many new general purpose instruments.

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* [http://epccs.org/indexes/Software/PyWinGPIB/ Python GPIB to try some SCPI with]

* [http://www.ivifoundation.org/scpi/default.aspx IVI foundation SCPI page]

[[Category:Electronic engineering]]

[[Category:Electronics standards]]