WHITCOMB%KOBOT@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU ("whitcomb%kobot.decnet@yale-venus.arpa") (04/11/88)
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Transputer Board Set For
Real-Time Digital Motion Control.
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The Yale Robotics Laboratory has been using the INMOS Transputer family
for real-time motion control applications for two years. We have
developed, as a tool for the laboratory, a control node which is
computationally powerful and also accommodates the specific device-I/O,
electrical isolation, and prototyping demands of real-time motion
control development.
Our design objectives were the following:
1. Floating Point >= 1 Megaflop/Node.
2. Simple inter-node I/O for distributed architectures.
3. Fast I/O bus for local devices or ASICs.
4. Mature development environment.
5. Low cost.
The Transputer was our cpu choice; its unique hardware satisfies items 1
and 2. The INMOS TDS meets the needs of item 4. Integrating the
transputer into a compact board set provides for items 3 and 5.
Specifically, the boards provide for the following:
Motherboard:
- Single extended eurocard form factor (small.)
- Support for one T4/T8.
- 128K byte fast static ram.
- Power and link connections compatible with INMOS products.
- Fiber optic link support. User configurable.
- Full bus connection to I/O board.
I/O Board:
- Single extended eurocard form factor; piggy-back on motherboard.
- Fully buffered and latched bi-directional I/O bus interface.
- Memory mapped bi-directional control lines for device control.
- Cpu interrupt.
- Prototyping area.
- Bus-rate ASIC interface option.
- Separate analog and digital power distribution, various voltages.
We will be happy to send copies of a paper, which we are presenting at
the OUG, to interested parties. Please send us your postal mail address.
ARPA: whitcomb%kobot.decnet@yale-venus
BITNET: whitcomb%kobot.decnet@yalevms
U.S. MAIL: Louis L. Whitcomb
Yale Robotics Laboratory
Department of Electrical Engineering
2157 Yale Station
New Haven, Ct 06520-2157