+
+
+%% \author{\IEEEauthorblockN{Authors Name/s per 1st Affiliation (Author)}
+%% \IEEEauthorblockA{line 1 (of Affiliation): dept. name of organization\\
+%% line 2: name of organization, acronyms acceptable\\
+%% line 3: City, Country\\
+%% line 4: Email: name@xyz.com}
+%% \and
+%% \IEEEauthorblockN{Authors Name/s per 2nd Affiliation (Author)}
+%% \IEEEauthorblockA{line 1 (of Affiliation): dept. name of organization\\
+%% line 2: name of organization, acronyms acceptable\\
+%% line 3: City, Country\\
+%% line 4: Email: name@xyz.com}
+%% }
+
+
+
+\title{Using FPGAs for high speed and real time cantilever deflection estimation}
+\author{\IEEEauthorblockN{Raphaël Couturier\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}, Stéphane Domas\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}, Gwenhaël Goavec-Merou\IEEEauthorrefmark{2} and Michel Lenczner\IEEEauthorrefmark{2}}
+\IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}FEMTO-ST, DISC, University of Franche-Comte, Belfort, France\\
+\{raphael.couturier,stephane.domas\}@univ-fcomte.fr}
+\IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{2}FEMTO-ST, Time-Frequency, University of Franche-Comte, Besançon, France\\
+\{michel.lenczner@utbm.fr,gwenhael.goavec@trabucayre.com}
+}
+
+
+
+
+
+
+\maketitle
+
+\thispagestyle{empty}
+
+\begin{abstract}
+
+
+
+{\it keywords}: FPGA, cantilever, interferometry.
+\end{abstract}
+
+\section{Introduction}
+
+Cantilevers are used inside atomic force microscope (AFM) which provides high
+resolution images of surfaces. Several technics have been used to measure the
+displacement of cantilevers in litterature. For example, it is possible to
+determine accurately the deflection with different mechanisms.
+In~\cite{CantiPiezzo01}, authors used piezoresistor integrated into the
+cantilever. Nevertheless this approach suffers from the complexity of the
+microfabrication process needed to implement the sensor in the cantilever.
+In~\cite{CantiCapacitive03}, authors have presented an cantilever mechanism
+based on capacitive sensing. This kind of technic also involves to instrument
+the cantiliver which result in a complex fabrication process.
+
+In this paper our attention is focused on a method based on interferometry to
+measure cantilevers' displacements. In this method cantilevers are illuminated
+by an optic source. The interferometry produces fringes on each cantilevers
+which enables to compute the cantilever displacement. In order to analyze the
+fringes a high speed camera is used. Images need to be processed quickly and
+then a estimation method is required to determine the displacement of each
+cantilever. In~\cite{AFMCSEM11}, the authors have used an algorithm based on
+spline to estimate the cantilevers' positions.
+
+ The overall process gives
+accurate results but all the computation are performed on a standard computer
+using labview. Consequently, the main drawback of this implementation is that
+the computer is a bootleneck in the overall process. In this paper we propose to
+use a method based on least square and to implement all the computation on a
+FGPA.
+
+The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section~\ref{sec:measure}
+describes more precisely the measurement process. Our solution based on the
+least square method and the implementation on FPGA is presented in
+Section~\ref{sec:solus}. Experimentations are described in
+Section~\ref{sec:results}. Finally a conclusion and some perspectives are
+presented.
+
+
+
+%% quelques ref commentées sur les calculs basés sur l'interférométrie
+
+\section{Measurement principles}
+\label{sec:measure}
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+\subsection{Architecture}
+\label{sec:archi}
+%% description de l'architecture générale de l'acquisition d'images
+%% avec au milieu une unité de traitement dont on ne précise pas ce
+%% qu'elle est.
+
+In order to develop simple, cost effective and user-friendly cantilever arrays,
+authors of ~\cite{AFMCSEM11} have developped a system based of
+interferometry. In opposition to other optical based systems, using a laser beam
+deflection scheme and sentitive to the angular displacement of the cantilever,
+interferometry is sensitive to the optical path difference induced by the
+vertical displacement of the cantilever.
+
+The system build by authors of~\cite{AFMCSEM11} has been developped based on a
+Linnick interferomter~\cite{Sinclair:05}. It is illustrated in
+Figure~\ref{fig:AFM}. A laser diode is first split (by the splitter) into a
+reference beam and a sample beam that reachs the cantilever array. In order to
+be able to move the cantilever array, it is mounted on a translation and
+rotational hexapod stage with five degrees of freedom. The optical system is
+also fixed to the stage. Thus, the cantilever array is centered in the optical
+system which can be adjusted accurately. The beam illuminates the array by a
+microscope objective and the light reflects on the cantilevers. Likewise the
+reference beam reflects on a movable mirror. A CMOS camera chip records the
+reference and sample beams which are recombined in the beam splitter and the
+interferogram. At the beginning of each experiment, the movable mirror is
+fitted manually in order to align the interferometric fringes approximately
+parallel to the cantilevers. When cantilevers move due to the surface, the
+bending of cantilevers produce movements in the fringes that can be detected
+with the CMOS camera. Finally the fringes need to be
+analyzed. In~\cite{AFMCSEM11}, the authors used a LabView program to compute the
+cantilevers' movements from the fringes.
+
+\begin{figure}
+\begin{center}
+\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{AFM}
+\end{center}
+\caption{schema of the AFM}
+\label{fig:AFM}
+\end{figure}
+
+
+%% image tirée des expériences.
+
+\subsection{Cantilever deflection estimation}
+\label{sec:deflest}
+
+As shown on image \ref{img:img-xp}, each cantilever is covered by
+interferometric fringes. The fringes will distort when cantilevers are
+deflected. Estimating the deflection is done by computing this
+distortion. For that, (ref A. Meister + M Favre) proposed a method
+based on computing the phase of the fringes, at the base of each
+cantilever, near the tip, and on the base of the array. They assume
+that a linear relation binds these phases, which can be use to
+"unwrap" the phase at the tip and to determine the deflection.\\
+
+More precisely, segment of pixels are extracted from images taken by a
+high-speed camera. These segments are large enough to cover several
+interferometric fringes and are placed at the base and near the tip of
+the cantilevers. They are called base profile and tip profile in the
+following. Furthermore, a reference profile is taken on the base of
+the cantilever array.
+
+The pixels intensity $I$ (in gray level) of each profile is modelized by :
+
+\begin{equation}
+\label{equ:profile}
+I(x) = ax+b+A.cos(2\pi f.x + \theta)
+\end{equation}
+
+where $x$ is the position of a pixel in its associated segment.
+
+The global method consists in two main sequences. The first one aims
+to determin the frequency $f$ of each profile with an algorithm based
+on spline interpolation (see section \ref{algo-spline}). It also
+computes the coefficient used for unwrapping the phase. The second one
+is the acquisition loop, while which images are taken at regular time
+steps. For each image, the phase $\theta$ of all profiles is computed
+to obtain, after unwrapping, the deflection of
+cantilevers. Originally, this computation was also done with an
+algorithm based on spline. This article proposes a new version based
+on a least square method.
+
+\subsection{Design goals}
+\label{sec:goals}
+
+The main goal is to implement a computing unit to estimate the
+deflection of about $10\times10$ cantilevers, faster than the stream of
+images coming from the camera. The accuracy of results must be close
+to the maximum precision ever obtained experimentally on the
+architecture, i.e. 0.3nm. Finally, the latency between an image
+entering in the unit and the deflections must be as small as possible
+(NB : future works plan to add some control on the cantilevers).\\
+
+If we put aside some hardware issues like the speed of the link
+between the camera and the computation unit, the time to deserialize
+pixels and to store them in memory, ... the phase computation is
+obviously the bottle-neck of the whole process. For example, if we
+consider the camera actually in use, an exposition time of 2.5ms for
+$1024\times 1204$ pixels seems the minimum that can be reached. For
+100 cantilevers, if we neglect the time to extract pixels, it implies
+that computing the deflection of a single
+cantilever should take less than 25$\mu$s, thus 12.5$\mu$s by phase.\\
+
+In fact, this timing is a very hard constraint. Let consider a very
+small programm that initializes twenty million of doubles in memory
+and then does 1000000 cumulated sums on 20 contiguous values
+(experimental profiles have about this size). On an intel Core 2 Duo
+E6650 at 2.33GHz, this program reaches an average of 155Mflops.
+
+%%Itimplies that the phase computation algorithm should not take more than
+%%$155\times 12.5 = 1937$ floating operations. For integers, it gives $3000$ operations.
+
+Obviously, some cache effects and optimizations on
+huge amount of computations can drastically increase these
+performances : peak efficiency is about 2.5Gflops for the considered
+CPU. But this is not the case for phase computation that used only few
+tenth of values.\\
+
+In order to evaluate the original algorithm, we translated it in C
+language. Profiles are read from a 1Mo file, as if it was an image
+stored in a device file representing the camera. The file contains 100
+profiles of 21 pixels, equally scattered in the file. We obtained an
+average of 10.5$\mu$s by profile (including I/O accesses). It is under
+are requirements but close to the limit. In case of an occasional load
+of the system, it could be largely overtaken. A solution would be to
+use a real-time operating system but another one to search for a more
+efficient algorithm.
+
+But the main drawback is the latency of such a solution : since each
+profile must be treated one after another, the deflection of 100
+cantilevers takes about $200\times 10.5 = 2.1$ms, which is inadequate
+for an efficient control. An obvious solution is to parallelize the
+computations, for example on a GPU. Nevertheless, the cost to transfer
+profile in GPU memory and to take back results would be prohibitive
+compared to computation time. It is certainly more efficient to
+pipeline the computation. For example, supposing that 200 profiles of
+20 pixels can be pushed sequentially in the pipelined unit cadenced at
+a 100MHz (i.e. a pixel enters in the unit each 10ns), all profiles
+would be treated in $200\times 20\times 10.10^{-9} =$ 40$\mu$s plus
+the latency of the pipeline. This is about 500 times faster than
+actual results.\\
+
+For these reasons, an FPGA as the computation unit is the best choice
+to achieve the required performance. Nevertheless, passing from
+a C code to a pipelined version in VHDL is not obvious at all. As
+explained in the next section, it can even be impossible because of
+some hardware constraints specific to FPGAs.
+
+
+\section{Proposed solution}
+\label{sec:solus}
+
+Project Oscar aims to provide an hardware and software architecture to
+estimate and control the deflection of cantilevers. The hardware part
+consists in a high-speed camera, linked on an embedded board hosting
+FPGAs. By the way, the camera output stream can be pushed directly
+into the FPGA. The software part is mostly the VHDL code that
+deserializes the camera stream, extracts profile and computes the
+deflection. Before focusing on our work to implement the phase
+computation, we give some general informations about FPGAs and the
+board we use.
+
+\subsection{FPGAs}
+
+A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be
+configured by the customer. A hardware description language (HDL) is used to
+configure a FPGA. FGPAs are composed of programmable logic components, called
+logic blocks. These blocks can be configured to perform simple (AND, XOR, ...)
+or complex combinational functions. Logic blocks are interconnected by
+reconfigurable links. Modern FPGAs contains memory elements and multipliers
+which enables to simplify the design and increase the speed. As the most complex
+operation operation on FGPAs is the multiplier, design of FGPAs should not used
+complex operations. For example, a divider is not an available operation and it
+should be programmed using simple components.
+
+FGPAs programming is very different from classic processors programming. When
+logic block are programmed and linked to performed an operation, they cannot be
+reused anymore. FPGA are cadenced more slowly than classic processors but they can
+performed pipelined as well as parallel operations. A pipeline provides a way
+manipulate data quickly since at each clock top to handle a new data. However,
+using a pipeline consomes more logics and components since they are not
+reusable, nevertheless it is probably the most efficient technique on FPGA.
+Parallel operations can be used in order to manipulate several data
+simultaneously. When it is possible, using a pipeline is a good solution to
+manipulate new data at each clock top and using parallelism to handle
+simultaneously several data streams.
+
+%% parler du VHDL, synthèse et bitstream
+\subsection{The board}
+
+The board we use is designed by the Armadeus compagny, under the name
+SP Vision. It consists in a development board hosting a i.MX27 ARM
+processor (from Freescale). The board includes all classical
+connectors : USB, Ethernet, ... A Flash memory contains a Linux kernel
+that can be launched after booting the board via u-Boot.
+
+The processor is directly connected to a Spartan3A FPGA (from Xilinx)
+via its special interface called WEIM. The Spartan3A is itself
+connected to a Spartan6 FPGA. Thus, it is possible to develop programs
+that communicate between i.MX and Spartan6, using Spartan3 as a
+tunnel. By default, the WEIM interface provides a clock signal at
+100MHz that is connected to dedicated FPGA pins.
+
+The Spartan6 is an LX100 version. It has 15822 slices, equivalent to
+101261 logic cells. There are 268 internal block RAM of 18Kbits, and
+180 dedicated multiply-adders (named DSP48), which is largely enough
+for our project.
+
+Some I/O pins of Spartan6 are connected to two $2\times 17$ headers
+that can be used as user wants. For the project, they will be
+connected to the interface card of the camera.
+
+\subsection{Considered algorithms}
+
+Two solutions have been studied to achieve phase computation. The
+original one, proposed by A. Meister and M. Favre, is based on
+interpolation by splines. It allows to compute frequency and
+phase. The second one, detailed in this article, is based on a
+classical least square method but suppose that frequency is already
+known.
+
+\subsubsection{Spline algorithm}
+\label{sec:algo-spline}
+Let consider a profile $P$, that is a segment of $M$ pixels with an
+intensity in gray levels. Let call $I(x)$ the intensity of profile in $x
+\in [0,M[$.
+
+At first, only $M$ values of $I$ are known, for $x = 0, 1,
+\ldots,M-1$. A normalisation allows to scale known intensities into
+$[-1,1]$. We compute splines that fit at best these normalised
+intensities. Splines are used to interpolate $N = k\times M$ points
+(typically $k=4$ is sufficient), within $[0,M[$. Let call $x^s$ the
+coordinates of these $N$ points and $I^s$ their intensities.
+
+In order to have the frequency, the mean line $a.x+b$ (see equation \ref{equ:profile}) of $I^s$ is
+computed. Finding intersections of $I^s$ and this line allow to obtain
+the period thus the frequency.
+
+The phase is computed via the equation :
+\begin{equation}
+\theta = atan \left[ \frac{\sum_{i=0}^{N-1} sin(2\pi f x^s_i) \times I^s(x^s_i)}{\sum_{i=0}^{N-1} cos(2\pi f x^s_i) \times I^s(x^s_i)} \right]
+\end{equation}
+
+Two things can be noticed :
+\begin{itemize}
+\item the frequency could also be obtained using the derivates of
+ spline equations, which only implies to solve quadratic equations.
+\item frequency of each profile is computed a single time, before the
+ acquisition loop. Thus, $sin(2\pi f x^s_i)$ and $cos(2\pi f x^s_i)$
+ could also be computed before the loop, which leads to a much faster
+ computation of $\theta$.
+\end{itemize}
+
+\subsubsection{Least square algorithm}
+
+Assuming that we compute the phase during the acquisition loop,
+equation \ref{equ:profile} has only 4 parameters :$a, b, A$, and
+$\theta$, $f$ and $x$ being already known. Since $I$ is non-linear, a
+least square method based an Gauss-newton algorithm must be used to
+determine these four parameters. Since it is an iterative process
+ending with a convergence criterion, it is obvious that it is not
+particularly adapted to our design goals.
+
+Fortunatly, it is quite simple to reduce the number of parameters to
+only $\theta$. Let $x^p$ be the coordinates of pixels in a segment of
+size $M$. Thus, $x^p = 0, 1, \ldots, M-1$. Let $I(x^p)$ be their
+intensity. Firstly, we "remove" the slope by computing :
+
+\[I^{corr}(x^p) = I(x^p) - a.x^p - b\]
+
+Since linear equation coefficients are searched, a classical least
+square method can be used to determine $a$ and $b$ :
+
+\[a = \frac{covar(x^p,I(x^p))}{var(x^p)} \]
+
+Assuming an overlined symbol means an average, then :
+
+\[b = \overline{I(x^p)} - a.\overline{{x^p}}\]
+
+Let $A$ be the amplitude of $I^{corr}$, i.e.
+
+\[A = \frac{max(I^{corr}) - min(I^{corr})}{2}\]
+
+Then, the least square method to find $\theta$ is reduced to search the minimum of :
+
+\[\sum_{i=0}^{M-1} \left[ cos(2\pi f.i + \theta) - \frac{I^{corr}(i)}{A} \right]^2\]
+
+It is equivalent to derivate this expression and to solve the following equation :
+
+\begin{eqnarray*}
+2\left[ cos\theta \sum_{i=0}^{M-1} I^{corr}(i).sin(2\pi f.i) + sin\theta \sum_{i=0}^{M-1} I^{corr}(i).cos(2\pi f.i)\right] \\
+- A\left[ cos2\theta \sum_{i=0}^{M-1} sin(4\pi f.i) + sin2\theta \sum_{i=0}^{M-1} cos(4\pi f.i)\right] = 0
+\end{eqnarray*}
+
+Several points can be noticed :
+\begin{itemize}
+\item As in the spline method, some parts of this equation can be
+ computed before the acquisition loop. It is the case of sums that do
+ not depend on $\theta$ :
+
+\[ \sum_{i=0}^{M-1} sin(4\pi f.i), \sum_{i=0}^{M-1} cos(4\pi f.i) \]
+
+\item Lookup tables for $sin(2\pi f.i)$ and $cos(2\pi f.i)$ can also be
+computed.
+
+\item The simplest method to find the good $\theta$ is to discretize
+ $[-\pi,\pi]$ in $nb_s$ steps, and to search which step leads to the
+ result closest to zero. By the way, three other lookup tables can
+ also be computed before the loop :
+
+\[ sin \theta, cos \theta, \]
+
+\[ \left[ cos 2\theta \sum_{i=0}^{M-1} sin(4\pi f.i) + sin 2\theta \sum_{i=0}^{M-1} cos(4\pi f.i)\right] \]
+
+\item This search can be very fast using a dichotomous process in $log_2(nb_s)$
+
+\end{itemize}
+
+Finally, the whole summarizes in an algorithm (called LSQ in the following) in two parts, one before and one during the acquisition loop :
+\begin{algorithm}[h]
+\caption{LSQ algorithm - before acquisition loop.}
+\label{alg:lsq-before}
+
+ $M \leftarrow $ number of pixels of the profile\\
+ I[] $\leftarrow $ intensities of pixels\\
+ $f \leftarrow $ frequency of the profile\\
+ $s4i \leftarrow \sum_{i=0}^{M-1} sin(4\pi f.i)$\\
+ $c4i \leftarrow \sum_{i=0}^{M-1} cos(4\pi f.i)$\\
+ $nb_s \leftarrow $ number of discretization steps of $[-\pi,\pi]$\\
+
+ \For{$i=0$ to $nb_s $}{
+ $\theta \leftarrow -\pi + 2\pi\times \frac{i}{nb_s}$\\
+ lut$_s$[$i$] $\leftarrow sin \theta$\\
+ lut$_c$[$i$] $\leftarrow cos \theta$\\
+ lut$_A$[$i$] $\leftarrow cos 2 \theta \times s4i + sin 2 \theta \times c4i$\\
+ lut$_{sfi}$[$i$] $\leftarrow sin (2\pi f.i)$\\
+ lut$_{cfi}$[$i$] $\leftarrow cos (2\pi f.i)$\\
+ }
+\end{algorithm}
+
+\begin{algorithm}[ht]
+\caption{LSQ algorithm - during acquisition loop.}
+\label{alg:lsq-during}
+
+ $\bar{x} \leftarrow \frac{M-1}{2}$\\
+ $\bar{y} \leftarrow 0$, $x_{var} \leftarrow 0$, $xy_{covar} \leftarrow 0$\\
+ \For{$i=0$ to $M-1$}{
+ $\bar{y} \leftarrow \bar{y} + $ I[$i$]\\
+ $x_{var} \leftarrow x_{var} + (i-\bar{x})^2$\\
+ }
+ $\bar{y} \leftarrow \frac{\bar{y}}{M}$\\
+ \For{$i=0$ to $M-1$}{
+ $xy_{covar} \leftarrow xy_{covar} + (i-\bar{x}) \times (I[i]-\bar{y})$\\
+ }
+ $slope \leftarrow \frac{xy_{covar}}{x_{var}}$\\
+ $start \leftarrow y_{moy} - slope\times \bar{x}$\\
+ \For{$i=0$ to $M-1$}{
+ $I[i] \leftarrow I[i] - start - slope\times i$\\
+ }
+
+ $I_{max} \leftarrow max_i(I[i])$, $I_{min} \leftarrow min_i(I[i])$\\
+ $amp \leftarrow \frac{I_{max}-I_{min}}{2}$\\
+
+ $Is \leftarrow 0$, $Ic \leftarrow 0$\\
+ \For{$i=0$ to $M-1$}{
+ $Is \leftarrow Is + I[i]\times $ lut$_{sfi}$[$i$]\\
+ $Ic \leftarrow Ic + I[i]\times $ lut$_{cfi}$[$i$]\\
+ }
+
+ $\delta \leftarrow \frac{nb_s}{2}$, $b_l \leftarrow 0$, $b_r \leftarrow \delta$\\
+ $v_l \leftarrow -2.I_s - amp.$lut$_A$[$b_l$]\\
+
+ \While{$\delta >= 1$}{
+
+ $v_r \leftarrow 2.[ Is.$lut$_c$[$b_r$]$ + Ic.$lut$_s$[$b_r$]$ ] - amp.$lut$_A$[$b_r$]\\
+
+ \If{$!(v_l < 0$ and $v_r >= 0)$}{
+ $v_l \leftarrow v_r$ \\
+ $b_l \leftarrow b_r$ \\
+ }
+ $\delta \leftarrow \frac{\delta}{2}$\\
+ $b_r \leftarrow b_l + \delta$\\
+ }
+ \uIf{$!(v_l < 0$ and $v_r >= 0)$}{
+ $v_l \leftarrow v_r$ \\
+ $b_l \leftarrow b_r$ \\
+ $b_r \leftarrow b_l + 1$\\
+ $v_r \leftarrow 2.[ Is.$lut$_c$[$b_r$]$ + Ic.$lut$_s$[$b_r$]$ ] - amp.$lut$_A$[$b_r$]\\
+ }
+ \Else {
+ $b_r \leftarrow b_l + 1$\\
+ }
+
+ \uIf{$ abs(v_l) < v_r$}{
+ $b_{\theta} \leftarrow b_l$ \\
+ }
+ \Else {
+ $b_{\theta} \leftarrow b_r$ \\
+ }
+ $\theta \leftarrow \pi\times \left[\frac{2.b_{ref}}{nb_s}-1\right]$\\
+
+\end{algorithm}
+
+\subsubsection{Comparison}
+
+We compared the two algorithms on the base of three criterions :
+\begin{itemize}
+\item precision of results on a cosinus profile, distorted with noise,
+\item number of operations,
+\item complexity to implement an FPGA version.
+\end{itemize}
+
+For the first item, we produced a matlab version of each algorithm,
+running with double precision values. The profile was generated for
+about 34000 different values of period ($\in [3.1, 6.1]$, step = 0.1),
+phase ($\in [-3.1 , 3.1]$, step = 0.062) and slope ($\in [-2 , 2]$,
+step = 0.4). For LSQ, $nb_s = 1024$, which leads to a maximal error of
+$\frac{\pi}{1024}$ on phase computation. Current A. Meister and
+M. Favre experiments show a ratio of 50 between variation of phase and
+the deflection of a lever. Thus, the maximal error due to
+discretization correspond to an error of 0.15nm on the lever
+deflection, which is smaller than the best precision they achieved,
+i.e. 0.3nm.
+
+For each test, we add some noise to the profile : each group of two
+pixels has its intensity added to a random number picked in $[-N,N]$
+(NB: it should be noticed that picking a new value for each pixel does
+not distort enough the profile). The absolute error on the result is
+evaluated by comparing the difference between the reference and
+computed phase, out of $2\pi$, expressed in percents. That is : $err =
+100\times \frac{|\theta_{ref} - \theta_{comp}|}{2\pi}$.
+
+Table \ref{tab:algo_prec} gives the maximum and average error for the two algorithms and increasing values of $N$.
+
+\begin{table}[ht]
+ \begin{center}
+ \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
+ \hline
+ & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{SPL} & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{LSQ} \\ \cline{2-5}
+ noise & max. err. & aver. err. & max. err. & aver. err. \\ \hline
+ 0 & 2.46 & 0.58 & 0.49 & 0.1 \\ \hline
+ 2.5 & 2.75 & 0.62 & 1.16 & 0.22 \\ \hline
+ 5 & 3.77 & 0.72 & 2.47 & 0.41 \\ \hline
+ 7.5 & 4.72 & 0.86 & 3.33 & 0.62 \\ \hline
+ 10 & 5.62 & 1.03 & 4.29 & 0.81 \\ \hline
+ 15 & 7.96 & 1.38 & 6.35 & 1.21 \\ \hline
+ 30 & 17.06 & 2.6 & 13.94 & 2.45 \\ \hline
+
+\end{tabular}
+\caption{Error (in \%) for cosinus profiles, with noise.}
+\label{tab:algo_prec}
+\end{center}
+\end{table}
+
+These results show that the two algorithms are very close, with a
+slight advantage for LSQ. Furthemore, both behave very well against
+noise. Assuming the experimental ratio of 50 (see above), an error of
+1 percent on phase correspond to an error of 0.5nm on the lever
+deflection, which is very close to the best precision.
+
+Obviously, it is very hard to predict which level of noise will be
+present in real experiments and how it will distort the
+profiles. Nevertheless, we can see on figure \ref{fig:noise20} the
+profile with $N=10$ that leads to the biggest error. It is a bit
+distorted, with pikes and straight/rounded portions, and relatively
+close to most of that come from experiments. Figure \ref{fig:noise60}
+shows a sample of worst profile for $N=30$. It is completly distorted,
+largely beyond the worst experimental ones.
+
+\begin{figure}[ht]
+\begin{center}
+ \includegraphics[width=9cm]{intens-noise20-spl}
+\end{center}
+\caption{Sample of worst profile for N=10}
+\label{fig:noise20}
+\end{figure}
+
+\begin{figure}[ht]
+\begin{center}
+ \includegraphics[width=9cm]{intens-noise60-lsq}
+\end{center}
+\caption{Sample of worst profile for N=30}
+\label{fig:noise60}
+\end{figure}
+
+The second criterion is relatively easy to estimate for LSQ and harder
+for SPL because of $atan$ operation. In both cases, it is proportional
+to numbers of pixels $M$. For LSQ, it also depends on $nb_s$ and for
+SPL on $N = k\times M$, i.e. the number of interpolated points.
+
+We assume that $M=20$, $nb_s=1024$, $k=4$, all possible parts are
+already in lookup tables and a limited set of operations (+, -, *, /,
+<, >) is taken account. Translating the two algorithms in C code, we
+obtain about 430 operations for LSQ and 1550 (plus few tenth for
+$atan$) for SPL. This result is largely in favor of LSQ. Nevertheless,
+considering the total number of operations is not really pertinent for
+an FPGA implementation : it mainly depends on the type of operations
+and their
+ordering. The final decision is thus driven by the third criterion.\\
+
+The Spartan 6 used in our architecture has hard constraint : it has no
+built-in floating point units. Obviously, it is possible to use some
+existing "black-boxes" for double precision operations. But they have
+a quite long latency. It is much simpler to exclusively use integers,
+with a quantization of all double precision values. Obviously, this
+quantization should not decrease too much the precision of
+results. Furthermore, it should not lead to a design with a huge
+latency because of operations that could not complete during a single
+or few clock cycles. Divisions are in this case and, moreover, they
+need an varying number of clock cycles to complete. Even
+multiplications can be a problem : DSP48 take inputs of 18 bits
+maximum. For larger multiplications, several DSP must be combined,
+increasing the latency.
+
+Nevertheless, the hardest constraint does not come from the FPGA
+characteristics but from the algorithms. Their VHDL implentation will
+be efficient only if they can be fully (or near) pipelined. By the
+way, the choice is quickly done : only a small part of SPL can be.
+Indeed, the computation of spline coefficients implies to solve a
+tridiagonal system $A.m = b$. Values in $A$ and $b$ can be computed
+from incoming pixels intensity but after, the back-solve starts with
+the lastest values, which breaks the pipeline. Moreover, SPL relies on
+interpolating far more points than profile size. Thus, the end
+of SPL works on a larger amount of data than the beginning, which
+also breaks the pipeline.
+
+LSQ has not this problem : all parts except the dichotomial search
+work on the same amount of data, i.e. the profile size. Furthermore,
+LSQ needs less operations than SPL, implying a smaller output
+latency. Consequently, it is the best candidate for phase
+computation. Nevertheless, obtaining a fully pipelined version
+supposes that operations of different parts complete in a single clock
+cycle. It is the case for simulations but it completely fails when
+mapping and routing the design on the Spartan6. By the way,
+extra-latency is generated and there must be idle times between two
+profiles entering into the pipeline.
+
+%%Before obtaining the least bitstream, the crucial question is : how to
+%%translate the C code the LSQ into VHDL ?
+
+
+%\subsection{VHDL design paradigms}
+
+\section{Experimental tests}
+
+\subsection{VHDL implementation}
+
+% - ecriture d'un code en C avec integer
+% - calcul de la taille max en bit de chaque variable en fonction de la quantization.
+% - tests de quantization : équilibre entre précision et contraintes FPGA
+% - en parallèle : simulink et VHDL à la main
+%
+\subsection{Simulation}
+
+% ghdl + gtkwave
+% au mieux : une phase tous les 33 cycles, latence de 95 cycles.
+% mais routage/placement impossible.
+\subsection{Bitstream creation}
+
+% pas fait mais prévision d'une sortie tous les 480ns avec une latence de 1120
+
+\label{sec:results}
+
+
+
+
+\section{Conclusion and perspectives}
+
+
+\bibliographystyle{plain}
+\bibliography{biblio}
+
