The Challenge:

Designing a monitoring system with distributed digital inputs across a physics reactor. The synchronization accuracy has to be within the hundreds of µs.

The Solution:

NI compactRIO architecture that deals with multiple digital input modules along with the Time-sensitive networking for tight synchronization across.

Physics reactor deals with highly accurate data acquisition and monitoring. This is crucial to determine and diagnose what happens when a certain condition was to be triggered. Haliatech, as the alliance partner for National Instruments (NI) in Indonesia, offers the recently announced Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) technology. 

Fault Detection System across the reactor numerous digital points is one of the common yet critical applications. One of the most challenging requirements of this application is to be able to have a distributed monitoring solution while synchronized with each other. 

The modular and embedded approach of using cRIO combined with TSN technology is one of the most suitable solutions to this challenge, mainly comprised of three main components:

1. The FPGA technology within compactRIO (cRIO) is ideal for monitoring digital input with the rate up to µs or even ns precision. 
2. The recently-announced TSN technology that enables the highly synchronized operation with each of the cRIO used, up to the order of 100s µs. 
3. The modular and rugged design of the cRIO allows future expansion, making the setup is cost-effective and efficient. 

A closer look at each of the components mentioned starting from the FPGA technology used. As we know, FPGA (Field-programmable gate arrays) is well known for its flexibility, reliability, hardware-timed speed, and parallelism.  

FPGA hardware-timed speed is possible due to the design of the implementation of the application logic itself. By putting the logic in the hardware circuits, it eliminates the overhead of the OS, drivers, and application software. 

Addressing our customer challenges, we have designed the FPGA part of the application to be customizable up to a 100 kHz theoretical sample rate. This approach would enable our customers to be able to discern one and each of the data acquired up to the 10 µs accuracy*. 

In tandem with our FPGA solution is TSN Technology. Time-Sensitive Networking is an update to the IEEE Ethernet Standard that has been in works for quite some time, involving companies like NI, Intel, Cisco along with organizations like IEEE, the Avnu Alliance and the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC). 

TSN offers various benefits, including the simple and reliable synchronization of distributed measurements. By adopting the technology, we managed to keep our devices in sync up to 1 µs accuracy**. 

Finally, all of our design resides within the cRIO solution. cRIO is well-known for its ruggedness, industry-standard certifications, and high-performance. The modular design of cRIO is also one of its key benefits. It means that our customers would be able to expand their application easily and cost-effectively. 

Haliatech is proud to be in this collaboration. Should you have any inquiries in regards to this application or NI solution in general, feel free to reach us at sales@haliatech.com. 

(*) Specifications vary by factors, such as the maximum sampling rate of the modules, FPGA clock, etc

(**) Typical specifications. Accuracy varies depending on the system configurations 

References:

• FPGA Fundamentals
• Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) Frequently Asked Questions
• Choosing a CompactRIO Synchronization Technology
• What Is the CompactRIO Controller?

Author Information:

Muhammad Farid Retistianto, ST

Haliatech, Alliance Partner of National Instruments

Bekasi – Indonesia

(+6221) 85508561

farid.retistianto@haliatech.com