diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 3f7a79c94..3d527fd94 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -50,3 +50,12 @@ nosetests.xml
 
 #pycharm generated
 .idea
+
+# VS Code IDE internals
+.vscode/
+
+# nosetests metadata
+.noseids
+
+# Hypothesis files
+.hypothesis/
diff --git a/dev-requirements.txt b/dev-requirements.txt
index 419748e1c..825550120 100644
--- a/dev-requirements.txt
+++ b/dev-requirements.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
 mock
 nose
+hypothesis
 pylint==1.7.1
diff --git a/doc/source/devguide/util_fns.rst b/doc/source/devguide/util_fns.rst
index 2d2719a91..9fa06769b 100644
--- a/doc/source/devguide/util_fns.rst
+++ b/doc/source/devguide/util_fns.rst
@@ -183,3 +183,15 @@ String Property
 .. autofunction:: string_property
 
 
+Named Structures
+================
+
+The :class:`~instruments.named_struct.NamedStruct` class can be used to represent
+C-style structures for serializing and deserializing data.
+
+.. autoclass:: instruments.named_struct.NamedStruct
+
+.. autoclass:: instruments.named_struct.Field
+
+.. autoclass:: instruments.named_struct.Padding
+
diff --git a/instruments/named_struct.py b/instruments/named_struct.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ef8522ab7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/instruments/named_struct.py
@@ -0,0 +1,318 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+"""
+Class for quickly defining C-like structures with named fields.
+"""
+
+# IMPORTS #####################################################################
+
+from __future__ import absolute_import
+from __future__ import division
+
+import struct
+from collections import OrderedDict
+
+from future.utils import with_metaclass
+
+# DESIGN NOTES ################################################################
+
+# This class uses the Django-like strategy described at
+#     http://stackoverflow.com/a/3288988/267841
+# to assign a "birthday" to each Field as it's instantiated. We can thus sort
+# each Field in a NamedStruct by its birthday.
+
+# Notably, this hack is not at all required on Python 3.6:
+#     https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0520/
+
+# TODO: arrays other than string arrays do not currently work.
+
+# PYLINT CONFIGURATION ########################################################
+
+# All of the classes in this module need to interact with each other rather
+# deeply, so we disable the protected-access check within this module.
+
+# pylint:disable=protected-access
+
+# CLASSES #####################################################################
+
+
+class Field(object):
+    """
+    A named field within a C-style structure.
+
+    :param str fmt: Format for the field, corresponding to the
+        documentation of the :mod:`struct` standard library package.
+    """
+
+    __n_fields_created = 0
+    _field_birthday = None
+
+    _fmt = ''
+    _name = None
+    _owner_type = object
+
+    def __init__(self, fmt, strip_null=False):
+        super(Field, self).__init__()
+
+        # Record our birthday so that we can sort fields later.
+        self._field_birthday = Field.__n_fields_created
+        Field.__n_fields_created += 1
+
+        self._fmt = fmt.strip()
+        self._strip_null = strip_null
+
+        # If we're given a length, check that it
+        # makes sense.
+        if self._fmt[:-1] and int(self._fmt[:-1]) < 0:
+            raise TypeError("Field is specified with negative length.")
+
+
+    def is_significant(self):
+        return not self._fmt.endswith('x')
+
+    @property
+    def fmt_char(self):
+        return self._fmt[-1]
+
+    def __len__(self):
+        if self._fmt[:-1]:
+            # Although we know that length > 0, this abs ensures that static
+            # code checks are happy with __len__ always returning a positive number
+            return abs(int(self._fmt[:-1]))
+
+        raise TypeError("Field is scalar and has no len().")
+
+    def __repr__(self):
+        if self._owner_type:
+            return "<Field {} of {}, fmt={}>".format(
+                self._name, self._owner_type, self._fmt
+            )
+
+        return "<Unbound field, fmt={}>".format(
+            self._fmt
+        )
+
+    def __str__(self):
+        n, fmt_char = len(self), self.fmt_char
+        c_type = {
+            'x': 'char',
+            'c': 'char',
+            'b': 'char',
+            'B': 'unsigned char',
+            '?': 'bool',
+            'h': 'short',
+            'H': 'unsigned short',
+            'i': 'int',
+            'I': 'unsigned int',
+            'l': 'long',
+            'L': 'unsigned long',
+            'q': 'long long',
+            'Q': 'unsigned long long',
+            'f': 'float',
+            'd': 'double',
+            # NB: no [], since that will be implied by n.
+            's': 'char',
+            'p': 'char',
+            'P': 'void *'
+        }[fmt_char]
+
+        if n:
+            c_type = "{}[{}]".format(c_type, n)
+        return (
+            "{c_type} {self._name}".format(c_type=c_type, self=self)
+            if self.is_significant()
+            else c_type
+        )
+
+    # DESCRIPTOR PROTOCOL #
+
+    def __get__(self, obj, type=None):
+        return obj._values[self._name]
+
+    def __set__(self, obj, value):
+        obj._values[self._name] = value
+
+class StringField(Field):
+    """
+    Represents a field that is interpreted as a Python string.
+
+    :param int length: Maximum allowed length of the field, as
+        measured in the number of bytes used by its encoding.
+        Note that if a shorter string is provided, it will
+        be padded by null bytes.
+    :param str encoding: Name of an encoding to use in serialization
+        and deserialization to Python strings.
+    :param bool strip_null: If `True`, null bytes (``'\x00'``) will
+        be removed from the right upon deserialization.
+    """
+
+    _strip_null = False
+    _encoding = 'ascii'
+
+    def __init__(self, length, encoding='ascii', strip_null=False):
+        super(StringField, self).__init__('{}s'.format(length))
+        self._strip_null = strip_null
+        self._encoding = encoding
+
+    def __set__(self, obj, value):
+        if isinstance(value, bytes):
+            value = value.decode(self._encoding)
+        if self._strip_null:
+            value = value.rstrip('\x00')
+        value = value.encode(self._encoding)
+
+        super(StringField, self).__set__(obj, value)
+
+    def __get__(self, obj, type=None):
+        return super(StringField, self).__get__(obj, type=type).decode(self._encoding)
+
+
+class Padding(Field):
+    """
+    Represents a field whose value is insignificant, and will not
+    be kept in serialization and deserialization.
+
+    :param int n_bytes: Number of padding bytes occupied by this field.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, n_bytes=1):
+        super(Padding, self).__init__('{}x'.format(n_bytes))
+
+class HasFields(type):
+    def __new__(mcs, name, bases, attrs):
+        # Since this is a metaclass, the __new__ method observes
+        # creation of new *classes* and not new instances.
+        # We call the superclass of HasFields, which is another
+        # metaclass, to do most of the heavy lifting of creating
+        # the new class.
+        cls = super(HasFields, mcs).__new__(mcs, name, bases, attrs)
+
+        # We now sort the fields by their birthdays and store them in an
+        # ordered dict for easier look up later.
+        cls._fields = OrderedDict([
+            (field_name, field)
+            for field_name, field in sorted(
+                [
+                    (field_name, field)
+                    for field_name, field in attrs.items()
+                    if isinstance(field, Field)
+                ],
+                key=lambda item: item[1]._field_birthday
+            )
+        ])
+
+        # Assign names and owner types to each field so that they can follow
+        # the descriptor protocol.
+        for field_name, field in cls._fields.items():
+            field._name = field_name
+            field._owner_type = cls
+
+        # Associate a struct.Struct instance with the new class
+        # that defines how to pack/unpack the new type.
+        cls._struct = struct.Struct(
+            # TODO: support alignment char at start.
+            " ".join([
+                field._fmt for field in cls._fields.values()
+            ])
+        )
+
+        return cls
+
+
+class NamedStruct(with_metaclass(HasFields, object)):
+    """
+    Represents a C-style struct with one or more named fields,
+    useful for packing and unpacking serialized data documented
+    in terms of C examples. For instance, consider a struct of the
+    form::
+
+        typedef struct {
+            unsigned long a = 0x1234;
+            char[12] dummy;
+            unsigned char b = 0xab;
+        } Foo;
+
+    This struct can be represented as the following NamedStruct::
+
+        class Foo(NamedStruct):
+            a = Field('L')
+            dummy = Padding(12)
+            b = Field('B')
+
+        foo = Foo(a=0x1234, b=0xab)
+    """
+
+    # Provide reasonable defaults for the lowercase-f-fields
+    # created by HasFields. This will prevent a few edge cases,
+    # allow type inference and will prevent pylint false positives.
+    _fields = {}
+    _struct = None
+
+    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
+        super(NamedStruct, self).__init__()
+        self._values = OrderedDict([
+            (
+                field._name, None
+            )
+            for field in filter(Field.is_significant, self._fields.values())
+        ])
+
+        for field_name, value in kwargs.items():
+            setattr(self, field_name, value)
+
+    def _to_seq(self):
+        return tuple(self._values.values())
+
+    @classmethod
+    def _from_seq(cls, new_values):
+        return cls(**{
+            field._name: new_value
+            for field, new_value in
+            zip(list(filter(Field.is_significant, cls._fields.values())), new_values)
+        })
+
+    def pack(self):
+        """
+        Packs this instance into bytes, suitable for transmitting over
+        a network or recording to disc. See :func:`struct.pack` for details.
+
+        :return bytes packed_data: A serialized representation of this
+            instance.
+        """
+        return self._struct.pack(*self._to_seq())
+
+    @classmethod
+    def unpack(cls, buffer):
+        """
+        Given a buffer, unpacks it into an instance of this NamedStruct.
+        See :func:`struct.unpack` for details.
+
+        :param bytes buffer: Data to use in creating a new instance.
+        :return: The new instance represented by `buffer`.
+        """
+        return cls._from_seq(cls._struct.unpack(buffer))
+
+    def __eq__(self, other):
+        if not isinstance(other, NamedStruct):
+            return False
+
+        return self._values == other._values
+
+    def __hash__(self):
+        return hash(self._values)
+
+    def __str__(self):
+        return "{name} {{\n{fields}\n}}".format(
+            name=type(self).__name__,
+            fields="\n".join([
+                "    {field}{value};".format(
+                    field=field,
+                    value=(
+                        " = {}".format(repr(self._values[field._name]))
+                        if field.is_significant()
+                        else ""
+                    )
+                )
+                for field in self._fields.values()
+            ])
+        )
diff --git a/instruments/tests/test_named_struct.py b/instruments/tests/test_named_struct.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..adeef46da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/instruments/tests/test_named_struct.py
@@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+"""
+Module containing tests for named structures.
+"""
+
+# IMPORTS ####################################################################
+
+from __future__ import absolute_import, unicode_literals
+
+from unittest import TestCase
+
+from hypothesis import given
+import hypothesis.strategies as st
+
+from instruments.named_struct import (
+    Field, StringField, Padding, NamedStruct
+)
+
+# TESTS ######################################################################
+
+# We disable pylint warnings that are not as applicable for unit tests.
+# pylint: disable=no-member,protected-access,blacklisted-name,missing-docstring,no-self-use
+
+class TestNamedStruct(TestCase):
+    @given(st.integers(min_value=0, max_value=0x7FFF*2+1), st.integers(min_value=0, max_value=0xFF))
+    def test_roundtrip(self, var1, var2):
+        class Foo(NamedStruct):
+            a = Field('H')
+            padding = Padding(12)
+            b = Field('B')
+
+        foo = Foo(a=var1, b=var2)
+        assert Foo.unpack(foo.pack()) == foo
+
+
+    def test_str(self):
+        class Foo(NamedStruct):
+            a = StringField(8, strip_null=False)
+            b = StringField(9, strip_null=True)
+            c = StringField(2, encoding='utf-8')
+
+        foo = Foo(a="0123456\x00", b='abc', c=u'α')
+        assert Foo.unpack(foo.pack()) == foo
+
+        # Also check that we can get fields out directly.
+        self.assertEqual(foo.a, '0123456\x00')
+        self.assertEqual(foo.b, 'abc')
+        self.assertEqual(foo.c, u'α')
+
+
+    def test_negative_len(self):
+        """
+        Checks whether negative field lengths correctly raise.
+        """
+        with self.assertRaises(TypeError):
+            class Foo(NamedStruct): # pylint: disable=unused-variable
+                a = StringField(-1)
+
+    def test_equality(self):
+        class Foo(NamedStruct):
+            a = Field('H')
+            b = Field('B')
+            c = StringField(5, encoding='utf8', strip_null=True)
+
+        foo1 = Foo(a=0x1234, b=0x56, c=u'ω')
+        foo2 = Foo(a=0xabcd, b=0xef, c=u'α')
+
+        assert foo1 == foo1
+        assert foo1 != foo2
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 30a1a88d6..89e22a811 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-numpy
+numpy<1.13.0
 pyserial
 quantities
 future>=0.15