An excitation controller with advanced trigger control is designed by using LabVIEW RT, LabVIEW FPGA software modules and CompactRIO hardware platform. The controller is composed of master computer, excitation regulator and excitation trigger. The excitation regulator and master computer carry out PID control and human-computer interaction functions, respectively. The excitation trigger developed based on CompactRIO with the embedded FPGA circuit realizes reliable frequency tracking of synchronization signal and high-precision control of thyristor trigger pulse. An experimental verification platform is built to verify the new excitation controller. The results show that each part of the controller operates reliably, and the whole is coordinated and orderly. The pulse trigger control meets the requirements of high precision, and the trigger control efficiency in excitation regulation is improved.