FPGA Design for Monitoring CANbus Traffic in a Prosthetic Limb Sensor Network

Description

The prosthesis industry is moving towards an open standards bus, with this comes the need to monitor the information being transmitted. This monitor is necessary to help develop new prosthetics as well as to assess rehabilitation effectiveness. Current monitors are unacceptable as they are unable to capture information at 1 Mbps, which is required. Altera’s FPGA platform allows for rapid development, fast problem targeting and most important, the ability to operate at the speed required to process the data. The design of the system will be flexible enough to meet future needs and follow current standards, simplifying the work required for end users to utilize the system. The system in its current iteration is well on its way to achieving the goals that must be met to call the project a success.