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EVAL2.0

8-Channel control board with usb, serial and Bluetooth interfaces for installed, multi tactor (up to 64) tactors.

The Eval.2.0 Controller board is an integrated control module capable of directly operating up to eight (8) EAI C-2 tactors. The controller can be directly addressed via the RS232 serial or USB interface formats, using standard software protocols. This controller board can be assembled in various hardware configurations, and can be provided as a circuit module for customers who wish to integrate an OEM hardware configuration. The Eval2.0 can be configured to network one master board which can control up to seven (slave) or daughter boards. This simplifies interconnects and cabling and allows up to 64 tactors to be controlled from one PC connection.

ATC3

Advanced controller 8-channel control board with usb, serial and Bluetooth interfaces for portable (battery operated), multi tactor systems.

The Advanced Tactor Controller ATC3.0 is designed primarily for portable applications (wearable controller) and has a smaller form factor than the Eval2.0. Various radio options including Bluetooth and Zigbee are provided as embedded options. The ATC2.0 also uses a powerful 32 bit processor and has additional UARTS allowing flexible custom application development.

NETWORKED TACTOR SYSTEM

  • A single Bus-Master board allows a host to address and control up to 63 individual tactor “nodes” over a single three wire bus.

    • Bus-Master

    • Super-Nodes ,and

    • Nodes


    The Bus-Master contains the interface to a host PC and provides the necessary functionality to allow the host PC to address and control the individual tactor Nodes with the same command set as used in our previous tactor controller boards. This single Bus-Master board would typically be installed in the avionics instrumentation enclosure, and could drive up to 64 tactors over 6 wires (3 + 3 for redundancy).



























    Figure 1: EAI Distributed Controller Architecture. A bus-master is located in the avionics enclosure and is connected to the vest via a bus (i.e. a small wire umbilical). Within the vest, tactors are co-located with a Node or Super-Node, and connected in a “daisy chain” fashion using a series of (3-conductor min.) inter-connections.

    The Nodes and Super-Nodes are connected to the Bus-Master in a multi-level ring bus architecture as illustrated below. Each Node and Super-Node drives a single tactor, usually co-located with the Node. The multi-level and ring nature of the bus allows for some redundancy and fault tolerance in the system.

    It is not necessary for a system to contain Super-Nodes as the Bus-Master can communicate directly with a Node. Super-Nodes are intended to allow for more flexible wiring options (multi-dimensional) and to further increase system fault tolerance.

    Typically, a system would be wired as a series of loops (ring), providing some degree of fault tolerance. A single break in any position in any of the loops should cause no interruption in the operation of the system as the Bus-Master communicates with the Nodes & Super-Nodes using both ends of the loop at the same time. Similarly, a fault in a single Node should cause no interruption.

    Each Node & Super-Node is uniquely identified with a 32-bit ID code. These codes are unique across all Nodes and Super-Nodes manufactured (i.e. numbering will never be repeated). Upon system power up, the Bus-Master performs a discovery routine in order to find, identify and enable each Super-Node and Node in the system.

    Commands issued by the host PC to a specific tactor number are processed by the Bus-Master, translated if necessary, and sent out on the bus to the Node with the specified tactor number. The address Node will respond to the Bus-Master and this response is passed back to the host PC. .