Application Cases of VMIC-5565 Reflective Memory Card

Aircraft Power System Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation:

In relevant applications of the U.S. Air Force, the turbine engine model runs in the Redhawk Linux soft real-time environment, while the rotor model operates in the Speedgoat hard real-time environment, with data synchronized between the two via reflective memory cards. Through the rotor dynamics model, users can flexibly adjust the power and speed between the engine and the generator. This capability is particularly crucial when representative power systems need to be coupled with full-scale aircraft engines. This approach provides a cost-effective and flexible solution for research and investigation while maintaining realistic hardware interfaces.

Synchrotron Radiation Facilities:

Synchrotron radiation, as a key technology in advanced experimental science at the sub-nanometer level, serves as an ideal tool in numerous research and industrial fields such as protein crystallography, X-ray tomography, lithography, X-ray technology, and residual stress measurement. It is widely applied in life sciences, medicine, materials science, molecular environmental science, and petrochemistry. Reflective memory cards are used in synchrotrons to control particle jitter. When particles undergo slight changes in their orbital motion due to magnetic forces, jitter occurs. Reflective memory cards, employed in jitter control systems, ensure that particles remain on their intended trajectories. Due to the high-speed movement of particles, the system must react quickly and in real time, a requirement that reflective memory cards are well-suited to meet.

Industrial Control DCS Systems:

For example, the VMIPCI-5565 reflective memory card can be applied in industrial control DCS systems to achieve real-time and stable data transmission. Each node in the system contains an independent copy of the reflective memory card, with each node having the authority to write data and read from local memory. When data is written to local memory, it is quickly updated to all nodes via specific hardware and networks.

Specifically, a real-time reflective memory network is a shared memory system specially designed for multiple independent computers to share data. Its working principle is as follows: when data is written to local memory, the FPGA captures and sends the data into the real-time reflective memory network. The data is then written to local memory and forwarded to the next node, continuing this cycle until the data returns to the source node, at which point it is removed from the network. Due to this specialized hardware and a series of node configurations, all nodes in the network are updated within an extremely short time, possessing the same data at the same addresses. Local processors can access the data in memory at any time without needing to access it over the network, ensuring that each computer has the latest copy of the memory data. In a 4-node example, it takes only 2.1 microseconds for all computers to receive the data written to the real-time reflective memory. A reflective memory card (node) consists of local memory, a PCI (or PCIe, VME) interface, and arbitration logic that provides computer access and real-time network memory updates. It can connect to computer buses and be installed in VME, PCI/PCI-X, CPCI, PCIe, and other standard systems, enabling most workstations and single-board computers to connect via the real-time network memory without concerns about interoperability with backplane interfaces.

Aircraft-Related Simulations:

- Airbus uses it for MATLAB/Simulink-based hardware-in-the-loop simulation of flexible aircraft, responsible for running flight dynamics models;

- Gulfstream Aerospace applies it to aircraft engine hardware-in-the-loop simulation, with Speedgoat responsible for running the engine model;

- Cessna Aircraft uses it for aircraft brake system hardware-in-the-loop simulation.

In these cases, the high speed, strong real-time capability, low host load, and ease of use of reflective memory cards are fully leveraged, meeting the needs of various systems with high real-time and data-sharing requirements. This effectively shortens system development cycles, reduces personnel costs, and enhances system robustness. Additionally, it frees software developers from complex communication protocols, eliminating concerns about bandwidth and uncertain latency issues during large-scale data transmission.