Interface circuit design and control system programming for an EMCCD camera based on Camera Link

Abstract

This paper presents an appropriate solution for self-developed EMCCD cameras based on Camera Link. A new interface circuit used to connect an embedded processor Nios II to the serial communication port of Camera Link in the camera is designed, and a simplified structure diagram is shown. To implement functions of the circuit, in the hardware design, it is necessary to add a universal serial communication component to the Nios II when building the processor and its peripheral components in the Altera SOPC development environment. In the software design, we use C language to write a UART interrupt response routine for instructions and data receiving and transmitting, and a camera control program in the slave computer (Nios II), employ a Sapera LT development library and VC++ to write a serial communication routine, a camera control and image acquisition program in the host computer. The developed camera can be controlled by the host PC, the camera status can return to the PC, and a huge amount of image data can be uploaded at a high speed through a Camera Link cable. A flow chart of the serial communication and camera control program in Nios II is given, and two operating interfaces in the PC are shown. Some design and application skills are described in detail. The test results indicate that the interface circuit and the control programs that we have developed are feasible and reliable.