Modular acquisition and control system for high-precision and highly scalable applications

Modular acquisition and control system with sub-nanosecond synchronisation over fibre optics. It incorporates programmable nodes, oscillator redundancy and active thermal control, ideal for high-precision and highly scalable applications.

Market need: Sectors that require high-precision data acquisition—such as advanced metrology, scientific research, medical instrumentation, or distributed industrial systems—demand architectures capable of: synchronising multiple nodes with sub-nanosecond precision, maintaining temporal stability over long distances, ensuring reliability in the face of local hardware failures and environmental fluctuations, and integrating high-speed digital and analogue sensors without loss of temporal coherence. Current solutions have limitations in terms of precise synchronisation, scalability, thermal robustness, and flexibility. This new system allows these drawbacks to be overcome.

Proposed solution: A modular and distributed data acquisition and control system is presented, based on a central switch and a network of nodes interconnected by fibre optics. The solution incorporates a unique system architecture with active thermal control, and has been tested in various applications, such as modular scientific laboratory equipment. It could potentially be used in large-scale technological or medical infrastructures.
This system enables high acquisition speeds, compatible with up to 1 GSPS in analogue, and operational robustness for prolonged use and critical environments.

Competitive advantages

True sub-nanosecond synchronisation.
Full scalability: allows nodes to be added without time degradation.
Very long distance fibre optic networks (>100 km) without loss of coherence, with oscillator redundancy, ensuring reliability in the event of failures.
Intelligent thermal control, ensuring stability in any operating environment.
Modular architecture, adaptable to different applications.