Field-Programmable System-on-Chip-Based Control System for Real-Time Distortion Correction in Optical Imaging

The digital transition requires real-time control of complex systems with short loop time and low latency in various applications. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are, in principle, capable of complying with this task but demand, on the other hand, a high programming effort. In this article, we propose a field-programmable system on chip (FPSoC) as a hybrid solution of an FPGA and a central processing unit (CPU) on a single monolithic die to combine the strengths of both architectures. An FPSoC-based adaptive optical wavefront correction system is presented as a case study to correct camera images in real time that are distorted by time-varying aberrations. While a short total loop time is achieved by interfacing the camera and a deformable mirror on a low level directly with the FPGA, all computationally nonintensive tasks are implemented on the CPU to keep the flexibility, reusability, and development expense low. The system corrects the optical distortion of water surface waves with up to 3600 control cycles per second and spatially attenuates the distortion up to Zernike polynomial 14 with up to 150 Hz. The FPSoC system enables fast spatiotemporal aberration correction in technical processes and offers a perspective for measuring complex flows through fluctuating interfaces.