Can Linux Improve ADC Sampling Rate on Intel Galileo Gen 2?

[cnh1995]

I am working on a little project with intel galileo gen 2 which involves successive analog voltage readings of a sinusoidal waveform. I am using analogRead() function in Arduino IDE for that purpose. But the on-board ADC is extremely slow.The sampling rate I am getting is terribly small which is 500 samples per second. The clock frequency of the processor is 400MHz, so expected rate is around 1 million samples per second but I am getting nowhere near it. Is there any way to achieve that rate,like by changing the ADC's clock frequency? Arduino uno R3 shield is compatible with the board. Will that help?

 

[berkeman]

I am working on a little project with intel galileo gen 2 which involves successive analog voltage readings of a sinusoidal waveform. I am using analogRead() function in Arduino IDE for that purpose. But the on-board ADC is extremely slow.The sampling rate I am getting is terribly small which is 500 samples per second. The clock frequency of the processor is 400MHz, so expected rate is around 1 million samples per second but I am getting nowhere near it. Is there any way to achieve that rate,like by changing the ADC's clock frequency? Arduino uno R3 shield is compatible with the board. Will that help?

Is the on-board ADC high resolution? Is that why it is slow?

What resolution and sampling frequency do you want to have? As you say, there are probably shields that would have faster (lower resolution) ADCs on them...

 

[cnh1995]

Is the on-board ADC high resolution? Is that why it is slow?

What resolution and sampling frequency do you want to have? As you say, there are probably shields that would have faster (lower resolution) ADCs on them...

Any resolution up to 16 bit is available.We can set it via analogReadResolution(x) command where x is the resolution in bits. I am using 10 bit resolution which is sufficient for me but the sampling rate should be much higher than 500 samples per second. The expected rate is around 1 million samples per second. Its a Texas Instruments ADC.
Should I try lower resolution for on-board ADC or go for any shield?

 

[analogdesign]

You're almost certainly limited by the software latency in the analogRead(x) command. Are there any low-level drivers you can access or any block read functions?

The analogReadResolution(x) function won't necessarily make it faster if it just truncates the output word of the ADC.

 

[cnh1995]

You're almost certainly limited by the software latency in the analogRead(x) command. Are there any low-level drivers you can access or any block read functions?

The analogReadResolution(x) function won't necessarily make it faster if it just truncates the output word of the ADC.

Then what is the standard procedure to use this ADC? I am not familiar with low level drivers or any block read functions. Where should I find them? Could you please elaborate?

 

[nsaspook]

The Gen 2 board seems to be using this device: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/adc108s102.pdf
So the bare hardware is capable of 1 MSPS but it's also unlikely to be that fast without a SPI controller driver using DMA to buffer the data. A quick search has the max 'sketch' speed at about 500Hz which seems to be very slow due to the way they handle gpio access. The Linux speed will be faster using the spidev user driver but it seems even then the hardware and software is not optimized for wire speed SP transfers.

https://communities.intel.com/message/257595

 

[cnh1995]

The Gen 2 board seems to be using this device: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/adc108s102.pdf
So the bare hardware is capable of 1 MSPS but it's also unlikely to be that fast without a SPI controller driver using DMA to buffer the data. A quick search has the max 'sketch' speed at about 500Hz which seems to be very slow due to the way they handle gpio access. The Linux speed will be faster using the spidev user driver but it seems even then the hardware and software is not optimized for wire speed SP transfers.

https://communities.intel.com/message/257595

How much faster will it be in Linux? I am using windows 8.1 now but I could run it on ubuntu.. Is there any shield which will be galileo compatible and get me higher sampling rate??

 

[nsaspook]

How much faster will it be in Linux? I am using windows 8.1 now but I could run it on ubuntu.. Is there any shield which will be galileo compatible and get me higher sampling rate??

With Linux you should be able to have much faster speeds but using the device with the Arduino IDE might be faster if accessed in blocks.
https://communities.intel.com/message/231977