Design of a data acquisition unit using photonic devices

Abstract

In this paper, the design of a stand-alone optical data acquisition unit is presented. The system hardware consists of optical analog-to-digital converter inputs, optical digital bidirectional switches, analog and digital inputs/outputs and a microcontroller-based system. The unit software consists of several tasks that enable the user through the input-drivenmenu to read, store, analyze, process, and display the incoming data. This unit can be used in different applications, such as signal processing, underwater acoustics, aerospace guidance, optical computing and color sorting.