Custom High
Speed 3 Axis Servo Motion Control System with 40MHz Tracking
Target and Trigger
This project was able to use
off-the-shelf components priced at OEM integration cost with a
development time of approximately 6 months. This approach allowed both
40MHz FPGA Servo control with integrated tracking within a target area
that then hardware triggers a ultra-high speed dispensing valve. One
might think closing the control loop at 40MHz is over kill for a motion
control system, but when you are moving complex 2 dimensional path at 2
meters/sec simultaneously and tracking position and targeting to 1
micrometer resolution it turns out this flexibility makes success
possible without extremely expensive and long schedule custom hardware
and firmware development which is typically required to attempt
designing and building a system with this performance and complexity.
One final benefit of this approach is the entire system is also a
real-time measurement data acquisition platform that allows collection
of position, velocity, acceleration, and command signals while active
motion and control with tracking targeting and triggering is operating.
Off-The-Shelf Components:
NI - LabVIEW Development Platform -
Windows - Real-Time - Embedded FPGA
Beckoff - EtherCAT Industrial PC - Acts
as a Motion Sequencer
NI - 9144 EtherCAT Slave Expansion -
Integrates C Series I/O Modules with FPGA
Media Documenting
Development:
LabVIEW
Embedded ARM Controller for
ALGAE BIOMASS REACTOR
This research project used a Texas
Instrument's ARM evaluation board which has become the scaleable
foundation of the embedded control and measurement system for a ALGAE
BIOMASS REACTOR. This system can control lighting, temperature, pH
chemistry, and fluid circulation rates, while also measuring parameters
of interest like like growth rates, fluid translucency, and fluid
viscosity. The FIRMWARE was developed using mostly LabVIEW
Embedded ARM Tools, with some optimized C programming to perform things
like inline FIRMWARE upgrade reprogramming. This approach is
amazingly flexible, and expandable by just adding more ARM
Microcontroller Boards that can be linked and synchronized through a the
CAN bus or the Ethernet bus.
Because this ARM and other
Microcontrollers are Systems-On-Chips with Ethernet and
other Serial busses they are well suited for embedding the
HTML5 standard WebSockets Communication Protocol, and that
is what we are currently perfecting at Inventeering.
By using the build in Ethernet or adding a WiFi to Serial
Module, we are able to leverage the power of building the
Human Machine Interface for these Microcontrollers on
Platforms like iPod or iPad or a growing number of Android
based Tablets or even a PC half way around the world.
Automatic EEPROM
Characterization System
Here is a sample of a test
solution that automatically sequences waffer position and
test programs while acquiring data in a Excel Spread format.
This software interfaces and controls the following
hardware:
KARL SUSS PA200 -
Semi-Automatic Probe System (Ethernet)
OLED touch
display interfaced to LabVIEW Demonstration
Here is a sample of our
preliminary work on a product development project for a
medical device. We are also developing a OLED for
LabVIEW Toolkit that will make it easy for other to
integrate these low cost OLED touch displays into their
embedded systems also.
Robotic Automation
Here is
a sample of our work from a product development project where we developed all
the software in LabVIEW and took about 6 months to
complete. The control system consisted of a embedded mini-ITX PC
running a minimized version of Windows XP and controlled through a
7" front LCD touch display. We used a USB Camera for alignment, registration
and inspection and 2D Barcodes. This robotic X-Y motion has a resolution
of 1 micro-meter and repeatability and accuracy well under
10 micro-meter.
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