Category: Claxon CXP4

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BitFlow CoaXPress Frame Grabber Aids in SuperKEKB Particle Accelerator Beam Failure Troubleshooting

 The SuperKEKB particle accelerator in Tsukuba, Japan, was constructed to achieve the highest particle collision rates in the world, enabling next-generation investigation of fundamental physics. SuperKEKB is unique in its employment of a nano-beam scheme that squeezes beams to nanometre-scale sizes at the interaction point, along with the use of a large crossing angle between the colliding beams to enhance electron–positron collision efficiency.

In its quest to reach the world’s highest collision rates, SuperKEKB has repeatedly suffered from Sudden Beam Loss (SBL) events. An SBL event occurs when vertical beam current is reduced by ten percent or more, leading to the process being aborted within a few turns lasting only 20 to 30 milliseconds. It is unknown what specifically invokes an SBL event. According to one theory, beam orbit oscillation causes beam sizes to significantly increase a few turns before an SBL occurrence. Yet it was also observed size escalation started earlier than beam oscillation. Increases have been measured to be up to ten times larger than the usual beam size.

SBL is the biggest obstacle to the longterm stability of SuperKEKB beam operation. It also has the potential to seriously harm accelerator components within the electrons or positrons rings, which are situated side-by-side within a tunnel. Determining the source behind SBL incidents and putting suppressive measures in place were crucial.

IDENTIFYING THE ORIGIN OF SBL

To help uncover the root cause of SBL and ensure redundancy, the SuperKEKB team developed two turn-by-turn beam size monitors operating at different wavelengths; one, an X-ray system for beam size diagnostics, and the other, a visible light monitor focusing on beam orbit variation and size increases.

The 99.4 kHz revolution frequency of the particle accelerator made it necessary to use imaging components compliant with the CoaXPress 2.0 (CXP-12) high-speed standard. In both the X-ray and visible light systems, data transfer rates up to 50 gigabits per second were achieved by aggregating four links between a Mikrotron EoSens 1.1 CXP2 CMOS camera and a BitFlow Claxon CXP4 PCIe quad link frame grabber. During data acquisition, the Mikrotron’s camera shutter was operated in precise synchronization with SuperKEKB’s 99.4 kHz revolution frequency. Captured image data was continuously stored in the BitFlow frame grabber’s 2GB ring buffer. It was only when a beam aborted did the data in the ring buffer move to the disk server for offline analysis.

The Claxon CXP4 is also capable of handling 4 x 1-link cameras, 2 x 2-link cameras or any combination of these.  Each link supports data acquisition of up to 12.5 Gb/s. The highly deterministic, low latency frame grabber will also provide a low speed uplink on all links, accurate camera synchronization, and 13W of Safe Power to all cameras per link.

By reducing the size of the camera’s Region-of-Interest (ROI), the X-ray monitoring system captured 99,400 frames per second, while the visible light system used an ROI twice the size of the X-ray, operating at a speed of 49,700 frames per second. The beam profile was measured with one shot every two turns instead of every turn.

DIFFERENTIATING BEAM PATTERNS

The frame grabber’s CXP-12 transmission speeds empowered SuperKEKB physicists to accurately differentiate between the various beam patterns developing before SBL events occurred.

Combining observations from both the X-ray and visible light monitoring systems, a possible SBL event scenario evolved. Physicists theorized changes in the beam orbit may lead to a sudden increase in vacuum pressure in the damping section of the SuperKEKB with irradiation being the possible source. In this theory, when the beam hits a vacuum component, such as a beam collimator, the result is a sudden loss in beam current and an SBL event. However, this has not been fully clarified. To explore other possibilities, SuperKEKB is developing more advanced X-ray beam-size monitors that combines a silicon-strip sensor with a powerful ADC.

Visible light beam size monitor showing four cables connected to a Mikrotron CXP-12 camera running into a BitFlow Claxon CXP4 PCIe quad frame grabber to achieve 50GB/sec data transfer rates (Image courtesy of SuperKEKB)

Visible light beam size monitor showing four cables connected to a Mikrotron CXP-12 camera running into a BitFlow Claxon CXP4 PCIe quad frame grabber to achieve 50GB/sec data transfer rates (Image courtesy of SuperKEKB

Claxon CXP4

Claxon CXP4 frame grabber

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BitFlow Debuts Fan-Cooled CoaXPress Frame Grabbers to Protect Industrial Mini-Computers

BitFlow Claxon and Cyton CXP frame grabbers engineered for the challenges of embedded computing where airflow cannot dissipate FPGA heat

WOBURN, MA, APRIL 28, 2021 — Configured with a powerful processor, ample storage, and an operating system, Small Form Factor (SFF PC) computers are becoming an essential part of the Industry 4.0 landscape, but present challenges in space-constrained embedded vision applications.

To save space, SFF PCs are typically fanless making them susceptible to overheating if airflow isn’t sufficient to dissipate heat from FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) processors that are often required to tackle demanding and intelligent vision tasks. The dense congestion of components within the SFF PC restricts airflow and space, which makes the use of many conventional cooling devices difficult to cool an FPGA.

To address thermal management challenges, BitFlow has engineered two new purpose-built frame grabbers featuring board-mounted micro fans to draw in cool air to replace hot air in the SFF PC. This dedicated design helps increase heat transfer from the FPGA while reducing the overall system size, and ensuring more reliable computing performance and preventing costly downtime.

Newly redesigned BitFlow Cyton CXP4-V and Claxon CXP4-V quad-channel frame grabbers were developed using the legacy architecture of their fan-less counterparts, so integrators can have complete confidence when selecting either of these field-proven designs for their vision systems. The Claxon CXP4 frame grabber is a quad CXP-12 PCIe Gen 3 frame grabber that supports one to four CXP-12 cameras and multi-link CXP-12 cameras, with CXP speeds from 3.25 to 12.5 Gb/S. Each connected camera has its own I/O and can draw up to 13 W of power. The Cyton CXP4 frame grabber is based on the CoaXPress 1.1 standard and has a Gen 2.0 x8 PCI Express bus interface on its back-end for high-speed access to host memory in multi-camera systems. Both frame grabbers support simple triggering modes and complicated, application-specific triggering and control interactions within any hardware environment.

“Although a small form factor PC consumes less power and produces less heat than its larger brethren, manufacturers are increasing the power of their microprocessors, putting more units per rack, and filling up the racks as much as possible, making overheating a serious issue,” said Donal Waide, Director of Sales for BitFlow. “With a lot of these small form factor PC’s the manufacturer is choosing to go fanless where possible but the powerful FPGA generates more heat than the heat syncs can dissipate quickly. Our new Cyton and Claxon CXP frame grabbers deliver extremely fast data transfer plus offer the added value of cooling protection for our customers’ computing investments.”

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New Whitepaper to Help Machine Vision Designers Control CoaXPress Cameras for Greater Flexibility and Lower Costs

Claxon CXP4

WOBURN, MA, JUNE 23, 2020 – The challenges facing today’s machine vision integrators are more complicated and critical than ever before, as they strive to build faster, more accurate and cost-efficient systems in the wake of changing technology. To that end, BitFlow has published a new whitepaper Controlling CoaXPress Cameras from The BitFlow SDK Tools, Configuration File and APIs designed to help integrators new to the CoaXPress (CXP) standard introduce advanced CXP cameras into system infrastructure to shape positive outcomes.

CoaXPress is the world’s fastest standard for professional and industrial imaging applications such as machine vision, medical imaging, life sciences, broadcast and defense. It is an asymmetric point-to-point serial communication standard that transmits video and still images, scalable over single or multiple coaxial cables. It has a high speed downlink of up to 12.5 Gbps per cable for video, images and data, plus a lower speed uplink up to 42 Mbps for communications and control.

An invaluable learning tool, the 10-page whitepaper details the flexible CXP tools available in the BitFlow SDK (Software Development Kit), and how they work in concert to meet different application needs. It also provides examples showing optimization of a CXP machine vision system, accelerated and simplified by the BitFlow SDK.

The publication of the new whitepaper is part of the rollout of the new BitFlow Claxon CXP-12 PCIe Gen 3 frame grabber. CXP-12 is the latest CoaXPress speed jump, now transmitting video at 12. 5 Gb/S.

Get your copy here.

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BitFlow Introduces SDK for NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier Development Kit

Jetson with a Claxon

BitFlow has released a Linux AArch64 (64-bit ARM) SDK that enables seamless integration of BitFlow frame grabbers with the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier Development Kit. 

Donal Waide, Director of Sales for BitFlow, states, “Many of our customers are already using GPU solutions such as NVIDIA for image processing so adding this option to the already large BitFlow suite of adapters was a natural progression for the company. BitFlow has been supporting Linux for several years across a variety of flavors.”

Added Waide, “BitFlow was one of the first frame grabber companies to support NVIDIA’s GPUDirect for Video technology. BitFlow and NVIDIA have worked together for a number of years already.” 

With the advent of the new machine vision standard CXP 2.0 where data rates are now up to 50 Gb/S, customers are looking to process more and more data and in shorter timeframes. For this, a GPU can typically perform these tasks much more effectively than a CPU. Even with slower data rates such as Camera Link’s (up to 850 MB/S) the ability to quickly process more complex algorithms is equally important. 

The NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier is the first computer designed specifically for autonomous machines. It has six Engines onboard for accelerated sensors data processing and running autonomous machines software, and offers the performance and power efficiency for fully autonomous machines.

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BitFlow in San Jose, California 2019

BitFlow will be exhibiting at the CRAV conference at the DoubleTree by Hilton San Jose from Tuesday November 12th through Wednesday November 13th.  Come stop by tabletop #63 to see our latest offerings.

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BitFlow Debuts NVIDIA-Powered CoaXPress Embedded Vision Solution at Laser World Of Photonics

WOBURN, MA — BitFlow, Inc., a global innovator in frame grabber technology, underscored its commitment to embedded vision by demonstrating a high-speed CoaXPress-NVIDIA® embedded imaging system at the recent Laser World of Photonics Show in Munich, Germany. This Small Form Factor (SFF) solution was engineered with lower hardware requirements so it can reside in compact devices or be integrated directly into a larger mechanical or electrical system, all while minimizing space, cost and energy consumption.

“Embedded vision is still in its infancy, but it has the potential to transform industries and open up new imaging capabilities that are almost infinite,” said Donal Waide, Director of Sales for BitFlow. “Through our Innovation Labs division, BitFlow is leveraging the CoaXPress 2.0 interface to develop embedded systems that are faster, more intuitive, and easier to integrate throughout the factory, which is critical to success in the IIoT era.”

As building blocks, BitFlow’s CoaXPress-NVIDIA solution coupled the BitFlow Claxon-CXP4 Quad CXP-12 frame grabber with a NVIDIA Jetson TX2 high-density AI computing platform, and demonstrated with a JAI SP-12000C-CXP4 camera for image acquisition. HDMI, DisplayPort, DSI and eDP video ports provide flexibility in display choices. Dispensing with the need for a full-sized PC altogether, images relayed from the BitFlow Claxon frame grabber are more efficiently processed on the NVIDIA CPU. At Laser World of Photonics, for example, BitFlow demonstrated how its Claxon frame grabber provided Direct Memory Access (DMA) for 12 Megapixel images transferred into GPU memory where the NVIDIA processor performed 2D to 3D transformations in real time.

BitFlow Innovation Labs aims to usher in a host of next generation embedded solutions for the factory floor and beyond, radically changing the functionality of countless devices. Targeted applications include commercial drones, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), border and port security, robotics, portable medical machinery, and many other emerging market segments. Going even further, the BitFlow Innovation Labs foresees embedded systems that facilitate image recognition and deep learning capabilities so that Smart Factory networks can be proactive in making decisions based on the environment around them.

“We founded BitFlow Innovation Labs to accelerate the adoption of embedded vision and CoaXPress 2.0,” said Waide. “By delivering new platforms based on both technologies, we are providing systems integrators with faster, smaller and more cost-effective solutions to deploy even their most mission critical imaging applications.”