SUMMARY
Light Age, Inc. designs, manufactures and sells advanced tunable and fixed wave length solid-state laser systems that are used in myriad medical, industrial and scientific applications.
This project was a “proof of concept” prototype, designed to control a 2.5 MW Pulsed Alexandrite Laser, both in power output and wavelength. Developed in National Instruments' LabVIEW 7.0 it utilized an Oriel/Galil motion controller to electo-mechanically control the wavelength with a high degree of precision. As the electromechanical method is not linear, a “lookup” table was used to provide a calibration between the physical position of the moveable elements and the desired wavelength, as well as other wavelength related values. The output power was controlled by adjusting the triggering of a Q-switch, relative to a master trigger switch, which was accomplished in LabVIEW using a National Instruments PCI-6024E multifunction data acquisition (DAQ) card's counter timer function. This card's digital output was also used to control various digital and analog functions of the laser system, controlled by the LabVIEW program. The programs user interface allows the operator to select the desired wavelength, which then displays the wavelength specific values loaded from the “look-up table”. When the operator accepts the values, they are applied to the appropriate hardware, motion controller or DAQ.
Summit Technology's role in this project was to provide consulting on the existing hardware setup, present recommendations for the selection of the NI PCI-6024E DAQ card and how this card should be interfaced with the customer's existing laser control hardware, and the development of the LabVIEW based control software, including the driver software to interface with the Oriel/Galil motion controller. Part of the development effort was devoted to determining methods to overcome the hardware limitations of the customer selected hardware, and developing driver software for the Galil controller.
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| Summit Technology Services, Inc. 93 N. Main Street P.O. Box 547 Wellsville, NY 14895 Phone: (585) 593-4241 Phone: (866)-258-4848 Fax: (585) 593-4309 info@summit-tsi.com |
