AUSTIN: Advanced UV-Image-Setting Technology Initiative
Keywords: Multi-Soft-Core Control Architecture, Image Processing, Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, Industrial Application, Nios II, Hardware/Software Co-Design, Low-Cost Implementation
Motivation: The UV-setter is an exposing machine that transfers digitial images onto UV-light-sensitive offset printing plates. Driven by customer demands as well as technological improvements, the UV-Setter has undergone many modifications and enhancements. Due to this rather evolutionary process, numerous components, such as cables, controllers, motors, mechanical components, etc., compete for the ressources and make it very hard to add new features and maintain the UV-setter.
Goals:
Developing an intelligent control system
that has the following properties:
(1) providing as much functionalities as possible
on one single chip,
(2) high flexibility and real-time performance, and
(3) featuring special-purpose image processor
for improving both the image quality and the processing speed.
Approaches:
This project has explored the following approaches:
(1) developing an FPGA-based control system,
(2) implementing a multi-processor system
that employs some soft-core processors, and
(3) complementing the soft-core processors
with custom hardware modules
in a hardware/software-co-desing process.
Results:
Realization of a controller board
that is based on an Altera Cyclone EP1C20 FPGA
and that has the following capabilities:
(1) Dramatic reduction of all cables and external modules.
(2) Hosting two Nios II processors for
controlling the entire system.
(3) Hosting an additional Nios II processor for
additional high-speed, online image processing.
(4) The integrated custom hardware processes the images
60 times faster than the software solution.
Poster: Further information can be found on the poster.
Research Team: Ralf Joost, Ralf Salomon, and John Hedde (Punch Graphix)
Contact: Ralf Joost
Selected Publications:
- Joost, R., Salomon, R. High Quality Offset Printing: An Evolutionary Approach. In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2007), pp. 2053-2058, 2007.
- Joost, R., Salomon, R. Hardware-Software Co-Design in Practice: A Case Study in Image Processing. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON 2006), pp. 3674-3679 2006.
- Joost, R., Salomon, R. Advantages of FPGA-Based Multiprocessor Systems in Industrial Applications. In Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON 2005), 2005.
Partners:
