Design And Implementation Of High-performance Data Acquisition Module Based On USB And FPGA

Data acquisition plays a more and more important role in modern industry and scientific research. According to it, the requirements of data acquisition device get highly improved. High-performance data acquisition is needed in some high speed and high precision measurements when signal measurements, image manipulation and audio frequency signal process are taken. In current, high-speed acquisition modules are mostly based on PCI bus or ISA bus. But they have obvious disadvantages such as not easy to fix, high cost and especially they are restricted to the slot number, address and interrupt resources.USB (Universal Serial Bus) is a plug-and-play interface between a computer and add-on devices (such as audio players, joysticks, keyboards, telephones, scanners, and printers). With USB, a new device can be added to your computer without having to add an adapter card or even having to turn the computer off. The USB peripheral bus standard was developed by Compaq, IBM, DEC, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Northern Telecom. Because it is available on almost every computer on the market, the USB is an excellent bus choice for data acquisition application. We can develop our measurement application on a desktop using our USB data acquisition device, and then deploy it on a laptop to take measurements in the field. Besides being a very popular bus, it is also very easy to use.FPGA is the abbreviation of Field Programmable Gate Array. FPGAs are chips, which are programmed by the customer to perform the desired functions. FPGA technology has its own advantages such as unlimited re-programming, fast re-configuration, high possible design density and general-purposed. So it is abroadused in the fields of communications, computer applications and image manipulation.In recent years, along with the coming of pervasive computing, embedded system has gotten a swift development because it is high-efficient and compact, etc. Embedded technology facilitates the integration of multi-level and multi-sampling computer technology today. Embedded system speeds up the design process of industry, and reduces exploration cost and risk. It features simple operation, flexible expansibility, high-efficiency and concision. It can be simply used in industry field. So the development of embedded system has been valued by more and more, given full play to self strong, flexible and simple characteristic. The rapid development becomes strong driving force for information industry.In this paper, a design scheme of high - performance data acquisition based on USB and FPGA and its hardware and software implementation are introduced. The data acquisition module is composed of analog signals inputs, A/D converter, memory, USB Controller and FPGA. In this project, signal conditioning, data acquisition and processing are implemented on a single board and high precision synchronization - triggering acquisition of multi - module is a plus. The module has the characteristic of high precision, low noise, low distortion and wide range of test signals. This system has succeeded achieving signal sampling, analyzing and processing.The high-speed data acquisition module based on USB and FPGA is compatible with USB 2.0. By having all the advantages that USB and FPGA have, it will be accepted by more and more people in the future.