Dual Adc and Dac with Artix7 FPGA now with software support for NVIDIA® Jetson GPU
XA-160M supported by NVIDIA® Jetson for Distributed Acoustic Sensing
Entegra Solutions is delighted to announce the XA-160M is now supported by the NVIDIA® Jetson. We have been working with ISI to provide this new solution to our customers. This enables our customers to develop low cost, compact and revolutionary DAS systems. Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is an important part of the photonics industry which is worth £12.9B to the UK economy (WNIE 29 June 2017). We are a leading supplier to this industry. Previously our solutions have been provided in a Windows or Linux based PC chassis. The NVIDIA® Jetson offers high performance in compact form factor ideal for some applications.
Technology
In Rayleigh scattering based distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) systems use fibre optic cables to provide distributed strain sensing. In DAS, the optical fibre cable becomes the sensing element and measurements are made, and in part processed, using an attached optoelectronic device. Such a system allows acoustic frequency strain signals to be detected over large distances and in harsh environments. The systems can be based on Coherent Rayleigh Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (COTDR) or Phase-sensitive coherent optical time-domain reflectometry (ϕ-OTDR), amoungst other methods. The interference signal is captured and often a large FFT is required during the signal processing.
These systems need high speed data acquisition like the XA-160M which is ideal for these applications, as it has two 160 MSPS 16-bit ADC channels, two 615 MSPS 16-bit DAC channels and a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA. In many cases the large FFT required in post signal processing has been run on mid tier Windows based PCs. The advance in computing technology for AI and autonomous systems has led to the development of new powerful low cost processors which can process large FFT’s. The NVIDIA® Jetson is ideal for this application.
Revolution in DAS
The combination of XA-160M and NVIDIA® Jetson is a sweet spot of cost and performance for new DAS systems. It allows distributed low cost nodes to be built in compact portable or large integrated systems bringing DAS technology to a wider market place. Entegra Solutions expertise in Digital Signal Processing in FPGAs and DAS systems gives our customers a competitive advantage and allows us to reach new markets together.
