Supporting Military FPGA Requirements in the UK

Sarsen Technology provides a wide range of rugged COTS boards and system solutions to the leading European Defense manufacturers. We have a long track record of supporting mission critical systems for land, sea & air, and we understand the importance of both process control and long-term support.

Our military customers require rugged solutions that are designed for harsh environmental conditions such as heat or cold, altitude, humidity, shock and vibration. Often the solutions we supply must be able to fit into space-constrained platforms and we can offer custom systems to suit. Also key is fast time to market, low risk, flexibility and long product life cycle. Many of the products we supply and support have industry-leading product life cycles and warranties as standard.

Our product lines include:

• MIL-STD-1553 Hardware
• Rugged VPX and COM Express Boards
• Cyber security boards and technology
• 19” Rackmount Systems
• FPGA boards based on Xilinx and Intel, including rugged Xilinx Zynq boards.

We have recently joined forces with REFLEX CES to provide their high-speed FPGA based solutions to customers in the UK and Ireland.

COMXpress Stratix® 10 SoC

REFLEX CES' designs are based around FPGA boards and firmware development, CPU and embedded software/OS, Analog and RF portions, as well as mechanical parts and custom chassis.
This combination of high performance deliverables results in rugged systems designed for harsh environmental constraints including ESD, temperature, humidity, shock and vibration. These FPGA based solutions can be combined with x86 CPU architecture or similar inside a turnkey form factor.

For more information please contact one of our engineers to discuss your requirements.

Rugged Multi Mission Computer Manufacturer Expands the Family

Here at Sarsen Technology we work with 13 different manufacturers, giving us the ability to provide our customers with a complete solution for almost any embedded requirement. We chose to work with Ecrin Systems, based in France, because they offer rugged, integrated COTS building blocks from Open Standard form factors like PICMG 1.3, achieving the best system performance at reduced cost and shortest time to market.

Founded in 1976, Ecrin Systems designs and manufactures COTS, Mil-COTS and rugged systems for military/aerospace customers, OEMs, system integrators and application providers in a number of domains.

Their leading product, ONYX, is based on leading edge multi-core Intel® Core™ i7 3rd and 4th Gen processors. Pre-Qualified MIL-STD-810/461/1275/DO-160 and in a lightweight, conduction cooled chassis the ONYX is an ideal choice for space constrained applications and harsh environmental conditions.

Ecrin has recently expanded the ONYX product family, and now offers 4 versions for different types of application.

ONYX:
Generic version with one discrete GPGPU MXC site (AMD E8860), one PMC and one miniPCIe mezzanines for I/O and wireless extensions. Suitable for any type of mission in Air (manned/ unmanned Aircraft, Helicopter, UAS, EW), Ground (Ground Vehicle, Radar, ELINT/SIGINT, EW) and Sea (ships and submarines, UUS, drone, Sonar, EW)

ONYX-HD:
For situation awareness with HD-SDI digital inputs/outputs, RS170 Analog inputs, metadata extraction.

ONYX-Datalink:
For Tactical Data link system, IP communication, data concentrator with 2x PMC/XMC, 2x miniPCIe and full spec. USB 3.0

µONYX:
Designed for applications with strict Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) requirements. Compare ONYX previous versions, we reduce the volume by two (3 litres), weight by two (<3kg) and power by two (<40W)

For more information please contact Sarsen Technology - info@sarsen.net or give us a call - 01672 511166

UEIPAC Now Supported by VxWorks

The UEIPAC™ programmable automation controllers from United Electronic Industries (UEI) offer an unprecedented combination of flexibility, high performance, low cost and small size, making them ideal solutions for a wide variety of measurement and control applications including: Temperature control, Remote vehicle control (UAV and ULV), Hardware in-the-loop (HIL) and more.

A key advantage of the UEIPAC is its standalone application deployment. In PowerDNA systems, the VxWorks application is written for, and runs on a host PC that is connected to one or more UEI chassis via Ethernet. In UEIPAC systems, the VxWorks application runs directly on the UEI RACK or Cube. There is no need for a separate host PC, though you can certainly connect one in a monitoring or supervisory role.

The new VxWorks support allows these applications to be developed and run in VxWorks. This allows smaller, faster, more reliable and higher performances systems. It also eliminates the cost of a dedicated host PC and guarantees long term availability of the identical hardware. This is critical when certifying products through CE or FDA, etc.

VxWorks Deployments
You can now make the most of all the hardware advantages of UEI’s popular UEIPAC chassis and continue to develop your applications in VxWorks. This combination provides hard real-time performance, an extremely robust and reliable operating system and allows you to develop your application in a familiar environment. It also allows you to preserve a great deal of previously written code.

To deploy a UEIPAC application running VxWorks you’ll need the following.

• A UEIPAC (any version)
• The “UEIPAC VxW BSP”. You only need to purchase the BSP once, regardless of the number of systems you deploy
• A VxWorks development system (from Wind River)
• A VxWorks run-time license for each UEIPAC deployed. (also purchased from Wind River )

For more information please contact Sarsen Technology on +44 1672 511166 or send us an email - info@sarsen.net

The Twelve Days of Christmas. Sarsen Style.

Today is the twelfth of the twelfth of the twelfth. So we're carrying on the theme and bringing you the Twelve Days of Christmas, in our own special way.

(Feel free to join in....)

On the first day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

A BittWare Anemone

On the second day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone

On the third day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Three Cisco Routers,

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone

On the fourth day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Four dspBloks

Three Cisco Routers,

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone

On the fifth day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Five Copperheads,

Four dspBloks

Three Cisco Routers,

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone

On the sixth day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Six RACKtangle chassis

Five Copperheads,

Four dspBloks

Three Cisco Routers,

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone

Well done guys, half way through....

On the seventh day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Seven Half-length Stratix V boards,

Six RACKtangle chassis

Five Copperheads,

Four dspBloks

Three Cisco Routers,

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone

On the eighth day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Eight Amazon Streamstors,

Seven Half-length Stratix V boards,

Six RACKtangle chassis

Five Copperheads,

Four dspBloks

Three Cisco Routers,

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone

On the ninth day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Nine Tech Source Condors

Eight Amazon Streamstors,

Seven Half-length Stratix V boards,

Six RACKtangle chassis

Five Copperheads,

Four dspBloks

Three Cisco Routers,

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone

On the tenth day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Ten General Standards boards,

Nine Tech Source Condors

Eight Amazon Streamstors,

Seven Half-length Stratix V boards,

Six RACKtangle chassis

Five Copperheads,

Four dspBloks

Three Cisco Routers,

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone

Nearly there, keep going!

On the eleventh day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Eleven Iguanas,

Ten General Standards boards,

Nine Tech Source Condors

Eight Amazon Streamstors,

Seven Half-length Stratix V boards,

Six RACKtangle chassis

Five Copperheads,

Four dspBloks

Three Cisco Routers,

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone

On the twelfth day of Christmas,

Sarsen sent to me

Twelve Trenton Backplanes,

Eleven Iguanas,

Ten General Standards boards,

Nine Tech Source Condors

Eight Amazon Streamstors,

Seven Half-length Stratix V boards,

Six RACKtangle chassis

Five Copperheads,

Four dspBloks

Three Cisco Routers,

Two UEI Cubes

And a BittWare Anemone!

Hurrah! Next up, We Wish You a Merry Christmas.......

Sarsen Technology is here if you need us, Santa!

Things are ramping up at the North Pole....

On the run up to Christmas Eve, Santa has to go through his list of names, and check it twice, to see who has been naughty and who has been nice. He then has to decide which toy each child deserves. It’s a long process, and it could be much simpler, using BLITzEN – the BittWare Low latency Intelligent Toy Evaluation Network.

It’s based on the Altera Stratix V FPGA, provides CPU offload, the highest performance transceivers , and with maximum processing performance per watt to minimize energy and thermal requirements it’s perfect for Santa’s busy Workshop, as it helps him to determine not just what children want but rather what they deserve.

Those Reindeer are an essential part of the process, and Santa knows he needs to make sure they are happy and performing at their best. The UEI Cube is small and rugged, and can be used to measure the tension on their specially adapted harnesses using its strain gauge layers, so Santa knows the second there are any problems. That sleigh is heavy!

Flying around the world in a reindeer-drawn sleigh would be made much easier with a display system running on the Copperhead Core i7 EBX board from VersaLogic. Its performance level allows for the integration of multiple high-bandwidth functions, such as digital signal processing and real-time video processing. The Copperhead features a high-speed memory interface, up to 16 GB on-board RAM capacity, and three independent display outputs, so Santa can check his route, run his aforementioned naughty-or-nice list, and still video-chat with the sleigh-port, an underground facility run by Elves that serves as a command and control centre. 

Phew! Its a busy time for the guys and girls at the North Pole, but don't worry Santa, Sarsen Technology is here to help. Give us a call on +44 1672 511166 or drop us an email!!

Data Acquisition and Temperature Monitoring with United Electronic Industries

United Electronic Industries (UEI) is a leading provider of PC based I/O products, including Ethernet data acquisition and embedded/industrial control interfaces, Data Loggers/Recorders and Linux based Embedded Controllers (PACs).
UEI supply products to many different markets, with a focus on simulation, industrial, aerospace, and laboratory data acquisition and control applications.
If you're not sure whether UEI has the right product to solve your problem you should check out the application stories on their website; you may be surprised how many different uses there are for the UEI hardware... 

High Channel Count Temperature Monitoring

A major appliance manufacturer automated temperature measurement in a CSA oven test stand. Though conceptually a simple application, the system requires monitoring over 1700 thermocouples.The previous solution involved four technicians monitoring a bank of digital panel meters and making manual entries into a test log. 
This inefficient, error-prone method was replaced by 18 PowerDNA DNA-PPC8 Cubes populated with DNA-AI-207 analog input boards.

DNA-AI-207 analog input board

The Cubes are distributed around the test chamber, minimizing the length of thermocouple wire required. The built-in single port Ethernet switch provided in the PowerDNA Cube allows the Ethernet to be daisy chained from one cube to the next. The entire system is implemented using a single Ethernet port on the host computer.

Software for this system was written in C++ using the UEIDAQ Framework. The Framework provides a powerful, yet simple set of drivers that may be called from all popular programming languages and application packages (e.g., LabVIEW, MATLAB) and supports Windows/ Vista. UEI also provides a high level API to support Linux and most popular Real-Time operating systems including QNX, RTX, and VxWorks. The library adds simulated hardware that allows you to test-drive the software, (or start developing your application) without any DAQ hardware. The UEIDAQ library is included with all UEI DAQ hardware at no charge. It is available for download from the UEI website.

The PowerDNA® (Distributed Networked Automation) Cube and PowerDNR RACKtangles are compact, rugged, Ethernet-based data acquisition and control chassis. PowerDNA series chassis act as I/O slaves to a host computer. Programs/applications running on a host PC receive data from input (or I/O) boards within the chassis and write data to output channels. I/O boards may be installed in any combination, allowing the Cube/RACKtangle to be precisely matched to your system requirements. This configuration works well in both data acquisition and control applications. 
Supporting LabVIEW, DASYLab and MATLAB, UEI is a great choice for your data acquisition and control requirements...

Tell us about your application - email laura.jeffs@sarsen.net or call the office on +44 1672 511166