High speed data aquisition circuit design for LIDAR

Thread Starter

pyroartist

Joined Oct 9, 2015
131
I am trying to design a pulsed Lidar circuit as shown in my flow chart attached. I have a few questions.
1. Is there a hobby type processor (Arduino, Teensy, ESP, etc.) that is fast enough to handle all the timing for these signals? It has to be able to generate a 100 nanosecond pulse, wait 200 nanoseconds, trigger data storage then check if 20 readings done.If not repeat starting at wait 200 ns.
2. I am frustrated in there seems to be no example circuits on how to use a FIFO memory chip. Why are most of these 9 bits? I have a 30Mhz 12 bit A/D and the only chips that are more than 9 bits are 16 bits and they cost $50 each. Is there an example circuit somewhere for a less than $10 chip?
Thanks for any ideas.Lidar system.jpg
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
12,998
Those timing spec's and memory storage requirements might be met by a fast 32-bit processor (200MHz PIC32MZ/EF, 10 nsec I/O cycle time for the MZ EF) with DMA transfers from the Parallel output ADC via a Parallel Master Port directly to memory. Not a trivial thing to design and program unless you are a experienced embedded engineer.
 

Thread Starter

pyroartist

Joined Oct 9, 2015
131
Thanks, but following how a PIC 32 bit machine works is like a full time job. I have tried with some ARM processors and it takes way too long to learn all the little details. I think I will keep looking. I just read about an ESP board that does 140 MHz and can be programmed in many different languages.
I want to stick with my A/D and use a FIFO.
 
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