No.5（2010）3.Storage Architecture for a Dependable In-line Measurement System

Yasuaki Kaneda, Yasuharu Irizuki, Hiroyasu Sano

  Recently, information technologies are often used in field instruments. The reason is that efficient production and In-line measurements for which both production and measurement are performed in the same line will become possible. However, there is a problem that digital data obtained in a field can be tampered with very easily. A major solution to this problem is connecting the data management system to field instruments via a network. But in some cases, it may not be possible to connect field instruments to a network because of security. Accordingly we aim to develop a stand-alone embedded instrument that can obtain and manage data in the field, and have studied the necessary architecture. As a result, we achieved a mirroring system using FPGA and flash memory that can write data at the rate of about 26KByte/s and improve the availability of instruments. By using a watchdog timer, a new mechanism is proposed such that the data receiving process can restart as soon as possible in the event it stops. In the experiment, it is demonstrated that the constructed system can receive and manage data sent at 64Byte each 100 millisecond without fault.

Keywords

In-line measurement, dependability, storage

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