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Dear experts, may I ask if this development board can be used for optical coating machines? If not, which development board can be used for optical coating machines? Thank you very much.

little_white

Dear experts, may I ask if this development board can be used for optical coating machines? If not, which development board can be used for optical coating machines? Thank you very much.

  • Avnet make lots of different Ultra 96 boards - which one are you thinking of ?

    Before any one can sensibly answer your question you need to describe what you need the board to do. For something like an optical coating machine I would expect the specification of the controller to run to several thousand words and many diagrams  - unless its a really simple machine.

    Then you need to tells us things like if this is a one off project, is it commercial or hobby, what development skills and experience do you have etc etc.

    My advice for a hobby project would be very different to that for a University research project or a commercial project.

    MK

  • A few more thoughts:  depending on the importance of your application, you may want to check the reliability of the board that you use to avoid any intermittent failures during the normal mode of operation. You can build a test project on that board that exercises ideally all functions and run it continuously for a number of days and in different environmental conditions like temperature changes, vibration, ...  During the test time you can also check with a thermal imaging camera if any of the components on the board overheats.  

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    Thank you very much for answering my question. The optical coating machine is a project which I am working for a company. The main purpose of using a development board is following: 1. Complete the collection of reflectance or transmittance in a specific environment. 2. Calculate the collected reflectance or transmittance to complete the optical monitoring system, thereby identifying the thickness of the optical film and controlling it

  • in reply to little_white

    This isn't really enough detail for me to help you very effectively. I would suggest that the Ultra 96 board is the wrong thing. Its an FPGA based board with a very steep learning curve, but from what you say you are interested in improving your machine - not in learning about FPGAs.

    To choose  aboard you need to first define the system inputs and outputs (sources, amplitudes, signal bandwidth, measuring speed etc etc.)

    Then define the system outputs, analogue, digital, screen GUI etc.

    Then you can start to define the controller.

    I would always start with standard bench top instruments if I can, like DMM, DAQ, spectrum analyser, scope etc controlled by a PC.

    Once you have a system working you will know the computing power needed and have a good idea of the range of signals.

    You can't choose the board until you can say thing like:

    "I'm going to measure the reflected signal using a Grot Labs abc123 infra red sensor with the matching def456 amplifier and control the aiming of the laser light source with a Precision Positioners ghi789 3 axis robotic table." (I made the names up).

    Then you can look at the data sheets and work out the inputs and outputs,

    Designing a system like this is a non trivial exercise - do you have access to mentoring or support at work ?

    MK

  • in reply to michaelkellett 
    Thank you very much for explaining so much to me.
    Now I am exploring the entire project by myself without anyone directly providing guidance. 
    I just collect relevant content online to learn, and my understanding of various development boards is not deep enough. 
    The most important thing is that I want to use FPGA to implement the adaptive Kalman filter algorithm. 
    Do you think it is feasible?
  • in reply to little_white

    It's feasible but not necessarily very wise.

    Development on FPGA is MUCH harder than on PC or similar.

    If you will only make one or a small number of these things you should consider using MATLAB or NI tools to do the development. NI stuff is expensive but they offer a very comprehensive set of software and hardware. Any coating controls that I have seen are implemented using NI hardware and software.

    But you still need to start at the beginning - define those inputs and outputs !

    BTW you can implement a Kalman filter on an 8 bit micro controller - it will be  a bit slow but that may not matter.

    I don't suggest you should actually use an 8 bit processor, but the point is that wanting a Kalman filter doesn't always point to an FPGA.

    MK

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    OK, thank you for your patient guidance！

  • Please fill out the support request form on the product page if you would like support for a specific customer regarding an Avnet Board.  If you check the box stating you would like to be contacted by an Avnet Salesperson, then you should hear from someone in a few days.

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