Deadly warriers battle on TV

When staging battles between the most feared warriors in history, the hit Spike TV show, “Deadliest Warrior,” uses National Instruments software and hardware to help determine the winner. The show, whose engineers have conducted demonstrations at NIWeek, selected NI LabVIEW graphical system design software, the NI CompactDAQ data acquisition platform and NI DIAdem data management software to conduct impact tests and measure and analyse the biomechanics of injury. The ease of use, quick setup and seamless integration of NI products makes them ideal for meeting the show’s need for a fast-time-to-measurement solution that can be reconfigured easily to perform a wide range of measurements.

“Deadliest Warrior” pits warriors such as pirates and knights against each other to measure their combat skills as well as the impact and severity of the weapons used. The show uses the latest technology and world-class fighters to reenact battles and fighting styles of each warrior and then uses measurement data to determine who would win in a head-to-head competition. The first season of the show averaged 1.8 million viewers and was the Spike TV channel’s best-selling series in 2009 across all download-to-own platforms.

“‘Deadliest Warrior’ is a hit with our viewers because it allows us to answer the age-old question of ‘Who would win in a fight?’ using real, cutting-edge technology to determine the outcome,” said Gary Tarpinian, “Deadliest Warrior” Producer. “Because time is money on a TV show, we needed a solution that could be set up quickly and was capable of taking measurements from a lot of different sensors. National Instruments software and hardware products deliver the flexibility and accuracy we need to acquire and analyse measurements quickly, and, as an added bonus, they are visually compelling for a TV audience.”

LabVIEW and NI CompactDAQ serve as a single software and hardware interface, respectively, to third-party sensors that take measurements from the weapons and fighters used in the battle simulations. Because of the modular nature of NI CompactDAQ, “Deadliest Warrior” engineers can easily swap out NI C Series modules from the chassis and quickly perform a variety of measurements. Additionally, DIAdem makes it easy for the engineers to bring multiple test measurements into one software environment to quickly compare, analyse and visualise data from the sensor measurements and determine the results.

Readers can learn more about how the “Deadliest Warrior” show is using National Instruments hardware and software by visiting this site. You can also learn about other unique applications for National Instruments products.