Abstract
It is widely accepted that contemporary scientific experimentation on electrical machines requires extensive measurements and acquisition of various data. The equipment used for this purpose is usually quite expensive and dedicated to a specific application. In this paper the development of a programmable, versatile and inexpensive system based on Labview environment is described. This is able to perform an essentially limitless number of simultaneous measurements on any kind of experimental or applied installation. Furthermore, the same system is able to perform extensive signal conditioning and processing, in order to automatically produce complex graphs and facilitate the drawing of conclusions. Finally, the same system may actively control electrical equipment allowing for even more complex experiments to be performed. In this case, an ac/ac converter supplies power to an electric motor. Six differential voltages and six currents are measured and recorded in real time, while power, total harmonic distortion etc are calculated, in order to determine whether the use of the ac/ac converter is efficient or not.