Holographic digital data storage (HDDS) technology is one of the most promising new technologies on the horizon for the optical storage industry.
Daewoo Electronics has been quietly working on and it looks like they have completed the first working model of holographic storage device. Byoungbok Kang of Daewoo Electronics explains how the company went about designing the system along with the hurdles they overcame to do so.
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Daewoo Electronics has developed the world’s first holographic storage device using LabVIEW FPGA and CompactRIO.
Overview :
The Challenge
Overcoming the technological limitations of traditional two-dimensional storage devices to achieve greater capacity and faster data retrieval.
The Solution
Developing the world’s first servo motion control system for three-dimensional holographic digital data storage on continuous rotation disks using the National Instruments LabVIEW FPGA Module and National Instruments CompactRIO.
Holographic digital data storage (HDDS) technology is one of the most promising new technologies on the horizon for the optical storage industry. Traditional data storage technologies, which store individual bits of information as magnetic or optical variations on the surface of the medium, are approaching physical limits.
However, holographic storage promises to accelerate data transfer rates to about one billion bits per second, reduce access times to just tens of microseconds, and increase storage densities toward a theoretical maximum of one trillion bits per cubic centimeter.
By encoding data throughout the three-dimensional volume of the storage medium and performing recording and retrieval using large parallel memory blocks called pages, holographic data storage overcomes the limitations of traditional two-dimensional technologies such as DVD.
How It Works :
HDDS prototype consists of two main subsystems – an electro-optical motion control system based on the NI CompactRIO 3M gate FPGA series and a video decoding system based on an 8M gate Xilinx FPGA board. The CompactRIO system controls a linear motor, a stepper motor, a galvo mirror, and a CMOS camera. Each motion control loop requires precise control, so we use feedback signals to control and detect data. Unlike a traditional computing board, CompactRIO lets us customize pulse generator timing to the resolution of a single FPGA clock using the NI LabVIEW FPGA Module.
To eliminate slipping, we developed complex motor control algorithms by creating custom mathematical functions for acceleration and deceleration. We separately produced and connected the drive circuitry for each of the three motor types to the CompactRIO I/O modules. In addition to motion control, CompactRIO communicates with the video decoding FPGA board developed with our own signal processing technology for video retrieval and CMOS camera control. CompactRIO also controls the data transfer rate by checking the quantity of data accumulated in the buffer in front of the MPEG decoder, which varies greatly with speed.
The system performed reliably during demonstrations at the 2005 Korea Electronics Show (KES), without any communication or operational errors among devices and boards, giving Daewoo a demonstrable technological edge in the emerging field of holographic digital data storage.
Benefits of the HDDS Prototype System :
Prototype HDDS system is the first of its kind. Most of the system’s components required independent research and development, because no other such systems exist for reference or imitation. The cost estimate of our original option – using a DSP board – was in the tens of thousands of dollars, with many months required for development. Using flexible LabVIEW software, together with CompactRIO hardware, we developed our system for only a few thousand dollars without compromising performance. Furthermore, the development period was only one month, earning the system industry commendation at its first display at KES 2005.
Rather than spending tens of thousands of dollars and many months of development to design a custom DSP board, our team was able to develop this groundbreaking HDDS system quickly and economically using NI CompactRIO, high-speed FPGA technology, and easy-to-use NI LabVIEW software. We were amazed that the project could be completed so quickly and efficiently.
Application Areas :
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[li]Consumer Goods[/li][li]Electromechanics/Electrotechnics[/li][li]Electronics[/li][li]Machines/Mechanics[/li][/ul]