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12-05-2014
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APERTIF LO-Generator Control board

Submitter: Sieds Damstra
Description: On several ASTRON boards, a PIC-controller is used to control the hardware. Other options would be to use a Raspberry Pi or an FPGA. The advantages of the chosen PIC microprocessor are:

  • Integrated Ethernet, hence low(er) self-generated RFI.
  • Real-time operating, (No OS interrupts).
  • Lots of I/O ports, as well as multiple integrated A/D converters.
  • Flash programmable. Also possibility to remotely program over ethernet or do a Firmware update over ethernet.

    The image shows the APERTIF LO-Generator (LOG) control board using this microcontroller. The board generates 2 independent SPI busses as well as 4 independent I2C busses. Multiple general purpose I/O pins are connected to the backplane. All connections to the backplane are made by means of isolated buffers to protect for failures and electrostatic discharges (ESD). Finally, for status signals and demonstraton purposes, the front-panel has six multi-color LEDs.

    The software to communicate with the control board makes use of a client/server model. The server software takes care of parsing through the commands to generate the I2C and SPI signals.
    • Copyright: ASTRON
     
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