OAR@UM Collection:https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/775982026-04-16T06:42:35Z2026-04-16T06:42:35ZUsing an RTOS to control digital boards in SKAhttps://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/776152021-06-24T06:13:08Z2016-01-01T00:00:00ZTitle: Using an RTOS to control digital boards in SKA
Abstract: The Square Kilometre Array will be the largest radio telescope ever built. The prototype
developed as part of this dissertation can form part of the monitoring and control system
of the SKA project.
The prototype will run on an ARM Cortex-M4 processor on the Tile Processing Modules
(TPMs). The main functions of the prototype software will be to monitor and control the
on-board Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), upgrade their firmware and connect
the TPM boards to the overall monitoring system. The monitoring and control system is
made up of different components including the Telescope Manager (TM), the Monitoring
Control and Calibration Servers (MCCS) and the TPMs themselves. These all need to
communicate with each other to maintain a heterogeneous ecosystem.
A Real-time Operating System (RTOS) running a custom application developed as part of
this dissertation runs on the processor. Using an RTOS allows the developed pipeline to be
easily ported to different micro-processor architectures with no changes to the pipeline
itself. This is achieved through the layers of abstraction provided by the RTOS. The
monitoring components in turn communicate with a Complex Programmable Logic Device
(CPLD) present on the TPMs through the developed framework. The FPGA registers and
memory regions are memory mapped to the CPLD's memory space. This mapping allows
the CPLD to control the boards through its firmware.
This project also investigates the functional requirements of the RTOS and the developed
application. During this dissertation the software architecture that allows the interactions
between the processor and the DSP was designed. A working prototype on which
evaluation tests were performed was implemented. The platform proved to provide a fast
reliable means of interaction over the user datagram protocol (UDP) and all the tests
performed resulted in positive results.
Description: M.SC.ASTROINFORMATICS2016-01-01T00:00:00Z