MicroTCA-based image processing system at SPring-8

We have developed a new image processing system based on MicroTCA that has advantages over PC-based systems in terms of robustness, flexibility, and scalability, due to its hot-swappable modular architecture. The system was built with commercial off-the-shelf products to reduce development costs and time. It consists of a Camera Link FMC, a user-configurable Spartan6 FPGA AMC with an FMC slot and processor AMCs (PrAMCs) with the Linux OS. The Camera Link FPGA IP core has been newly developed in compliance with the AXI4 open-bus to enhance reusability. The FPGA AMC is connected with the PrAMC by PCI Express x1. The image data captured by the Camera Link interface is transmitted to the PrAMC using DMA transfer. The Linux device driver and library have been developed to acquire images and control the camera exposure time, gain and so on. The hot swapping procedure of the FPGA AMC is also realized on Linux. The MicroTCA image processing system has been first applied to upgrade of the two-dimensional (2D) synchrotron radiation interferometer operating at the SPring-8 storage ring. The transverse beam size and tilt angle of the stored electron beam with elliptical Gaussian distribution are extracted from an observed 2D-interferogram. Two PrAMCs are assembled for parallel image processing. The secondary PrAMC is dedicated to a fast 2D fitting routine of the 2D-interferogram to achieve high-repetition beam size and tilt angle monitoring during the storage ring operation. This parallel processing enables us to process a series of routines from the capture of the interferogram to the recording of the fitted results in the database within one second. The system has operated stably since October 2013. We will apply the MicroTCA image processing system to the 3D bunch charge distribution monitor as part of the XFEL project at SPring-8. We will develop the readout system for simultaneous image data detection from several CCD cameras. We will apply the MicroTCA system using several FPGA AMCs with Camera Link FMCs to handle multiple cameras. We are considering another implementation using high-performance FPGA AMC compliant with the MTCA.4 standard.