u2 max

bye all

I'm going to sign off, but I will leave you all chatting -- HAPPY HOLIDAY WEEKEND everyone!!!

@Rich: "That chat was at 9 eastern. Over and done."

Bummer -- there's so much going on that I can't keep track

wow that was a quick thirty minutes have a great holiday weekend everyone 

@Rich: There are all sort sof techniques to use FPGAs in Rat-Tollerant designs -- Xilinx has software that trippalizes the design in a single FPGA -- also allows partial reconfiguration if part of the design is affected by radiation -- also there's some clever stuff you can do with the configuration cells -- I just added this topic to my list of future "Ask Max" articles

@Rich we use radiation hard FPGA (Virtex and RTAX) but even then they suffer from SEU and config issues so we have to code relaibly. I wrote a Xcell article on coding structures a few issues ago if your interested 

bye

@Max - Indy Cars racing with an FPGA controlled ECU -- Not sure how - I know a few years back Xilinx was toughting McLauren's F1 car that had their hardware for the ECU, etc.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!   Bye.

@ max, thanks for thinking about MCC but that chat was at 9 eastern. Over and done.

@William: Re "How many Indy Cars will race with an FPGA controled ECU"

Automotive ECMs/PCMs using 32-bit MCUs.  Since the racing engineers come from automotive tier one supliers (previous careers), I just assumed that they too use MUCs.  But, I do not know for sure...  It seems like there would definitely be some advantages with FPGAs.

OK Chaps and Chappesses -- I really appreciate your joining me today -- I know how busy everyone is -- don;t forget that we have another chat scheduled for noon central time next Thursday, when Duane will be chatting about his progress with his "Discovering FPGAs" blogs.

Meanwhile, Rich, don't you have a chat coming up on Microcontrollercentral.com shortly today?

@adam, makes sense, one cosmic ray strike in the wrong memory location and an MCU can go off into program counter runaway. But how radiation resistant are FPGAs?

another different apporach is we at Astrium tend to prefer FPGA to software and microprocessor based solutrions for missions 

@Adam: "kalman filtering"

No, I always walk this way :-)

@William: Re "How many Indy Cars will race with an FPGA controled ECU"

That's a really interesting question ... I woudl love to know -- but how could we find the answer?

@max kalman filtering 

@Norm: re " I have never done one personally"

This may be more information than we need to know ... what are you talking about exactly (grin)

@Rich: Fuzzy is strange. It's huge over in places like Japan, but it's practically ignored here in America -- I recently took delivery of two secondhand books on Fuzzy -- all I have to do now is read them and understand them :-)

@normnovoteny I have never done one personally but I know people who have implemented them 

@max lol sorry mate no can do.... 

With this being Memorial Day Weekend how many of the Indy Cars will race with an FPGA controled ECU -- (I would wager most if not all)

@William we are havign great success and it seems that it solves a lot of our issues for space flight power solutions still a way to go before qualification. I will hopefullt have a open internship working on it agreed soon as well 

Give me a Kalman Filter in an FPGA & I'll be happy anywhere

My email is my pineywoodsdavid@yahoo.com thanks! I have to leave for a while but thanks again

@adam: That's OK -- I have a top security clearance myself (trust me, have I ever lied to you before?), so feel free to tell me anything :-)

Guess I was thinking of the fuzzy logic hardware I recall seeing a decade or so ago that has vanished. The approach still seems to be around. Found this link to a tutorial on the topic from Seattle Robotics Society.

Finally figured the website out -- I've done several MCU in the loop power supplies, and am hopeing in the future to try an FPGA in the loop supply --

@Rich - I just briefly scanned the "MCUs Focus on Motor Control" article that you provided the link for below.  That's what I am used to!  Great stuff.  The MCU's CPU doesn't have to burden itself so much with code/processing with a good peripheral on-board (or motor control IC)!

@max i cannot tell you what I did it for due to national security but I have done tracking algorithms via cameras before as well

Max, is fuzzy logic still around?

@pineywoodsdavid send me a email and I will send you a simple PID code I have floating about 

@David: re PID control in an FPGA -- there was an article about this recently over on EE Times. For myself, I agree that PID is great for process control, but I would like to learn a lot more about Fuzzy Logic control for robotic applications

I will write a blog on it my experience is mainly around thermal imaging however it translates to most things. We used FIR filters, Neural networks etc to get useable images

@Adam - it seems the most interest here is in image processing with FPGA.  But, please keep the RGB topic on your list of blog ideas...  Sounds interesting.

@Adam: I think we are going to need all the help we can get re image processing. The simpler robot avatars on the market (which still cost around $6000) require you to explicitly control every aspect of them. I would like mine to respond to things going on around it -- like if someone moves in the room to turn its head to face them...

I would be interested in PID controls based around an fpga

Adam, I'd be interested in blogs about image processing using fpgas. Last time I did image processing hardware I created a 16-tap FIR using a 6u board full of 74ls logic. FPGA sounds more effecient

I have been using FPGA's recently to replace the analogue control loop within switched mode voltage convertors. As it offers aseveral benefits anyone else looking at this ?

The thing about the original SparkFun Tetris implementation wa sthe their 4 x 4 pushbuttins were each controlled by microcontrollers and they were read and written to using a long daisy-chain approach. I don;t think that will be fast enough for what I want to do -- I'm thinking of having a small FPGA associated with each 4 x 4 array -- then a master FPGA with an embedded microcontroller (like a Xilinx Zynq) on a main control board in charge of it all. Also have an application running on the PC that allows me to controll everything -- and have the PC communicate with the Zynq-base master control board via a low-power wireless network...

I will be happy to share what I know, image processing with FPGA is very interesting as you can fun back to back filters etc with little impact. It is really fun and interesting if you use things like matlab and hardware in the loop to get good results very quickly 

@Adam - well, I just finished an RGB project a couple of months ago, but I did not need to do the mixing manually.  Long story, but the mixing was done using an custom IC...  I would be interesting in reading more about your ideas...

Actually -- you could use my massive wall-size push-button array for all sorts of things -- like a massive "Game of Life" thing...

How about implementing the famous ELIZA program....show that an FPGA can really "think"

Max, recently blogged about MCUs specific for motor control - they have control law engines built in.

@Max - thanks for that answer.  Sounds excellent.  Maybe Adam could include those items in the blod idea that he had...  Thanks again!

@Brian: "Max - you get all the toys!"

Who deserves them more than I (grin)

I'm thinking of creating a wall-size 2D Turing machine -- maybe 24 x 24 of these 4 x 4 push button panels.

@brian no problem if max will post it I will write it ;) 

It is realyl simple to do are you interested in colour (RGB)  or grey scale vision ?

@Adam thanks - that does sound like a good blog.  (Remember, I am an FPGA newbie and just becoming interested in them...)

@Brian: Re your question "Are there advantages using FPGAs for motor control - over MCU+Driver IC?" YES :-)

NCUs are great for decision making stuff, but they are horribly inefficient for algorithmic data processing tasks -- FPGAs can perform tasks in a massively paralley fashion -- for sophisticated motor controll you need to be sampling current and cvoltage waveforms thousands of times a second -- MCUs can't keep up...

thought I had sent this but not sure where it went 

@brian the fpga architecture especially FIFO make it very easy tpo create a matrix for perfoming operations e.g. 3x3 needs TWO Fifo and register maybe I shpould write a blog on it 

"sent me a coupel of the 4 x 4 pushbutton assemblies to play with..."

Max - you get all the toys!  :-)

Another project I want to do is a giant Turing Machine -- the guys at SparkFun created a fantastic hardware Tetris game using a matrix of 4 x 4 pushbuttons, each containing a tri-colored LED. Chris Taylor (a blogger here on All Programmable Planet) sent me a coupel of the 4 x 4 pushbutton assemblies to play with...

"robot vision and motor control functions"

Are there advantages using FPGAs for motor control - over MCU+Driver IC?

I have some experience with thermal imaging and image processing, FPGAs are great for doing windowing on the image to apply algorithms - i.e. median, edge detection etc

sampling speed was not that high. Megahertz or so.

System had to also load and register the xray plate, determine its size, open the casing, scan the image, close the casing, deliver it to an outbasket, and automatically load the next plate in the queue

Duane can't be with us today, but one of the things we're talking about is making a robot avatar and using FPGAs to do a lot of the robot vision and motor control functions

How fast where the ADC sampling ?

last project I had needing a programmable device I needed to control timing for scanning of xray plates of varying sizes with high precision. I needed high precision timing of ADCs for sampling, control of steppers for the scan, and coordination between.

so what unusual FPGA implementations have we all seen over the years. I am currently using them to protpye digital switch mode power control algorithms 

Ok I made it :) I like the site

Soooo .... any thoughts on the "Top 100 Unusual FPGA applications?"

Hi Adam -- Hi Brian -- Hi Richard

you are not alone

Hi Max,

Good morning.

Good Morning all

happy friday max

Hello Everyone -- may I be the very first to wish you a HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

One of our members -- Norm -- posted a comment saying: "It might be a great idea to start a list of the 'top 100' unusual FPGA applications.....when can the FPGA do what other devices can't (or won't do or just don't have the guts to do)...get some jucies running..what could I possibly do with MY programmable device?"

I love this idea -- let's start with an online chat here on All Programmable Planet at 11:00am my/CENTRAL time (noon Eastern, 9:00am Pacific) on Friday 25 May