Tektronix announced an open-source Python instrument driver package for the company’s test instruments. Available at no cost, the package provides you with a native Python user experience for instrument automation. With integration into daily workflows and utilizing it with a preferred Integrated Development Environment (IDE), engineers use features such as auto-complete, precise type hinting, comprehensive built-in help, real-time syntax checking, and enhanced debugging capabilities. Those features bring seamless instrument automation to test program sequences. The open-source Python driver package lets you work across a wide range of Tektronix and Keithley test instrument, which facilitates ongoing development and updates, ensuring that engineers have access to the latest features and improvements.
Instrument drivers provide an abstraction layer between your test application software and the instrument itself. Drivers hide the lower-level syntax commands needed to control an instrument. Making a simple measurement can take several commands to set up the instrument, capture the measurement data, and store it. A driver combines those commands and hides you from them, simplifying test automation. The driver package includes PyVISA, a software layer that interfaces the driver to the instrument.