Universal Serial Bus Interface Research Articles

A Low-Cost B-Mode USB Ultrasound Probe

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is now the ubiquitous interface bus of choice for connecting peripherals to personal computers and laptops. USB 2.0 is a half-duplex bus running at 480 Mb/s and each peripheral can draw as much as 500 mA of current at a nominal 5 V from the USB connector. We have developed a family of USB-based, B-mode probes that connect directly to a personal computer or laptop and that draw as little as 250 mA (1.25 W) when forming ten 5 MHz images/second. The pulser/receiver, high voltage supply, analog-to-digital converter, servo and USB interface are implemented on a small circuit board inside the probe body. After raw data are transferred to the computer, gain compensation, interpolation, filtering and other data processing are performed by the host processor. This gives flexibility to developers and allows enhancements to the system to be incorporated via software updates. In addition, the raw data are available for storage and later postprocessing. There are several advantages to this architectural approach to B-mode imaging, including low cost, portability and optimal signal-to-noise performance. This paper describes the advantages of the architecture of the probe family, discusses the hardware/software division of the required processing steps and presents example images from a 12.5 MHz ophthalmic probe.

Reconfigurable microwave photonic transversal filter using a variable gain tilt filter

A novel and simple technique to realize reconfigurable microwave photonic transversal filter is presented. In the proposed method, a multi-wavelength source and a dispersive medium are applied to achieve multiple taps; and an electro-optic ceramic material-based variable gain tilt filter (VGTF) is utilized to control the tap weights of the filter. The VGTF is computer-controlled via a universal serial bus interface, which enables real-time reconfiguration of the filter. Filter responses with different passband bandwidth and different sidelobe suppression can be achieved. Compared with previous approaches, the given method features in less optical components involved and faster response speed. A three-tap reconfigurable filter with sub-millisecond response speed is experimentally demonstrated.

Development of a universal serial bus interface circuit for ion beam current integrators

A universal serial bus (USB) interface circuit has been developed to enable easy interfacing of commercial as well as custom-built ion beam current integrators to personal computer (PC) based automated experimental setups. Built using the popular PIC16F877A reduced instruction set computer and a USB-universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter/first in, first out controller, DLP2232, this USB interface circuit virtually emulates the ion beam current integrators on a host PC and uses USB 2.0 protocol to implement high speed bidirectional data transfer. Using this interface, many tedious and labor intensive ion beam irradiation and characterization experiments can be redesigned into PC based automated ones with advantages of improved accuracy, rapidity, and ease of use and control. This interface circuit was successfully used in carrying out online in situ resistivity measurement of 70 keV O(+) ion irradiated tin thin films using four probe method. In situ electrical resistance measurement showed the formation of SnO(2) phase during ion implantation.

USB interface for Medipix2 pixel device enabling energy and position-sensitive detection of heavy charged particles

Abstract We have designed an interface board between the Medipix2 single photon counting chip and Universal Serial Bus (USB), which is presently the most widespread PC interface. All necessary detector support is integrated into one compact system ( 80 × 50 × 20 mm 3 ) including the detector bias source (up to 100 V). Power supply is internally derived from the voltage provided by the USB connection, so no external device is required. This solution allows to achieve maximum portability of the measurement setup. One of the most significant advantages is the support of back-side pulse processing. The charge generated by an ionizing particle is measured in the bias circuit and can be used for spectroscopic purposes or for triggering. With the present design, the energy resolution of such spectrometry is about 44 keV.The interface board has been designed for connection with present chip-boards carrying one or four Medipix2 chips.

A multiparameter data acquisition system based on universal serial bus interface for electron momentum spectrometer

A versatile multiparameter data acquisition system based on universal serial bus (USB) interface was designed and has been used on the electron momentum spectromenter. Digitized data were first buffered in a FIFO memory in an event-by-event mode with a check bit, and then transferred to computer through the USB interface. USB interface combined with a microcontroller unit provides much flexibility for data acquisition and experimental controls. The operation performance of the system is demonstrated in the measurement of electron momentum spectra of CH2F2 molecules.

A Universal Serial Bus interface for electronics projects and instruments

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USB 인터페이스를 이용한 LCD 구동회로의 FPGA 설계

본 논문에서는 USB(Universal Serial Bus) 인터페이스를 이용하여 Gray Mode Graphic STN LCD를 구동하는 구동회로를 제안한다. 제안된 구동회로는 사용자가 PC상에서 작업한 이미지 데이터를 USB 인터페이스를 이용하여 LCD로 전송할 수가 있다. 따라서 기존의 방식과는 달리 마이크로프로세서를 사용하지 않기 때문에 사용자가 손쉽게 LCD를 구동할 수 있는 장점이 있다. 제안한 LCD 구동회로 부분은 VHDL(VHSIC Hardware Description Language)로 설계하여 시뮬레이션을 수행하고 ALTERA사의 EPF10K10TC144-3 FPGA를 사용하여 구현하였다. USB 인터페이스 부분은 MS-Visual C++ 6.0으로 프로그래밍하였다. 한편, 제안한 구동회로를 테스트 보드를 구성한 후에 하드웨어 동작 검증을 수행하여 그 효용성을 입증하였다. 본 논문에서 제안한 구동회로를 현재 시판중인 마이크로프로세서를 사용하는 타 업체의 구동회로와 비교한 결과는 구동회로의 작동 편이성, 제작시 소요되는 비용 등에서 우수함을 나타내었다. This paper describes a Gray Mode Graphic STN LCD drive circuit using USB interface. The drive circuit using USB interface can highly transfer image data created under PC t LCD. Hence, the LCD drive circuit doesn't use microprocessor for the convenience of users. The proposed LCD drive circuit part have been verified by simulation and by ALTERA EPF10K10TC144-3 FPGA implementation in VHDL. The USB interface part have been programmed in MS-Visual C++ 6.0. The validity and efficiency of the proposed LCD drive circuit have been verified by test board. After comparing this LCD drive circuit to specify it was verified that the developed LCD drive circuit showed good performances, such as convenience of users, low cost.