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International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 22-25, 2001 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Many high-performance, reconfigurable data functions can now be integrated into a single PCI circuit board, making possible low-cost and complex systems using PCs or UNIX workstations. FPGA and PCI technologies are an excellent match to telemetry applications where commercial off-the-shelf solutions are desired, but customization is common and performance critical. A Multifunction Telemetry I/O (MFT) module was designed to exploit these technologies for both flight test and space telemetry ground systems. The reconfigurability of the module has facilitated evolutionary hardware enhancements as well as custom applications. These enhancements have been used both as building blocks for system integrators and for commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) graphic setup, processing, archiving, and display software. The MFT module includes a standard set of telemetry functions: up to two bit synchronizers, an IRIG time decoder, and two independent telemetry serial input and output channels. The MFT module is also available on a 6U VME board. This paper describes some of the proven capabilities and applications of this module.

Partial Reconfigurable FPGA provides ability of reconfigure the FPGA duringrun-time. But the reconfigurable part is disabled while performing reconfiguration. In order to maintain the functionality of system, data stream should be hold for RP during that time. Due to this feature, the reconfiguration time becomes critical to designed system. Therefore this thesis aims to build a functional partial reconfigurable system and figure out how much time the reconfiguration takes. A XILINX ML605 evaluation board is used for implementing the system, which has one static part and two partial reconfigurable modules, ICMP and HTTP. A Web Client sends different packets to the system requesting different services. These packets’ type information are analyzed and the requests are held by a MicroBlaze core, which also triggers the system’s self-reconfiguration. The reconfiguration swaps the system between ICMP and HTTP modules to handle the requests. Therefore, the reconfiguration time is defined between detection of packet type and completion of reconfiguration. A counter is built in SP for measuring the reconfiguration time. Verification shows that this system works correctly. Analyze of test results indicates that reconfiguration takes 231ms and consumes 9274KB of storage, which saves 93% of time and 50% of storage compared with static FPGA configuration.

Thesis (MScEng (Electrical and Electronic Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Swarm intelligence research was inspired by biological systems in nature. Working ants and bees has captivated researchers for centuries, with the ant playing a major role in shaping the future of robotic swarm applications. The ants foraging activity can be adapted for different applications of robotic swarm intelligence. Numerous researchers have conducted theoretical analysis and experiments on the ants foraging activities and communication styles. Combining this information with modern reconfigurable computing opens the door to more complex behaviour with improved system dynamics. Reconfigurable computing has numerous applications in swarm intelligence such as true hardware parallel processing, dynamic power save algorithms and dynamic peripheral changes to the CPU core. In this research a brief study is made of swarm intelligence and its applications. The ants' foraging activities were studied in greater detail with the emphasis on a layered control system designed implementation in a robotic agent. The robotic agent’s hardware was designed using a partial self reconfigurable FPGA as the main building element. The hardware was designed with the emphasis on system flexibility for swarm application drawing attention to power reduction and battery life. All of this was packaged into a differential drive chassis designed specifically for this project. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die motivering vir swerm robotika kom van die natuur. Vir eeue fassineer swerm insekte soos bye en miere navorsers. Dit is verstommend hoe ’n groep klein en nietige insekte sulke groot take kan verrig. Die mier speel ‘n belangrike rol en is die sentrale tema van menige publikasies. Die mier se kos-soek aktiwiteit kan aangepas word vir swerm robotika toepassings. Hierdie aktiwiteit vervat verskeie sleutel konsepte wat belangrik is vir robotika toepassings. Deur bv. die mier se aktiwiteite te kombineer met dinamies herkonfigureerbare hardeware, kan meer komplekse gedrag bestudeer word. Die stelsel dinamika verbeter ook, aangesien dit nou moontlik is om sekere take in parallel uit te voer. Deur ’n interne prosesseerder in die herkonfigureerbare hardeware in te sluit, is dit nou vir die stelsel moontlik om homself te verander tydens taak verrigting. Komplekse krag bestuur gedrag is ook moontlik deurdat die prosesseerder die spoed en rand apparaat kan verander soos benodig. ‘n Verdere voordeel is dat die stelsel aanpasbaar is en dus vir verskeie navorsingsprojekte gebruik kan word. In hierdie navorsing word ’n literatuur studie van swerm robotika gemaak en word daar ook na toepassings gekyk. Met die klem op praktiese implementering, word die mier se kos-soek aktiwiteit in detail ondersoek deur gebruik te maak van ’n laag beheerstelsel. In hierdie laag beheerstelsel verteenwoordig elke laag ’n hoër vlak gedrag. Stelsel aanpasbaarheid en lae kragverbruik speel ’n deurslaggewende rol in die ontwerp, en om hierdie rede vorm ’n FPGA die hart van die sisteem.