Skip to content
Contact us
All posts

Introducing SentiBoard 2.0

Picture of SentiSystems By   ·  3 minute read

sentiboard2_top_blog-1In today's interconnected world, the demand for precise and synchronized data from sensors is higher than ever before. Industries ranging from manufacturing and healthcare to autonomous vehicles and smart cities rely on accurate sensor data to make informed decisions. Enter SentiBoard 2.0 – a groundbreaking circuit board that is set to transform sensor integration and synchronization. This innovative technology leverages modern Ethernet standards, including IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN), to provide a seamless and highly precise solution for sensor data collection.

The Evolution of Sensor Integration

Integrating multiple sensors into a single system is often a complex and challenging task. Ensuring that these sensors are synchronized with high precision is even more daunting. Traditional methods relies on custom made hardware and software solutions, often leading to increased costs and complexity. SentiBoard 2.0 changes the game by offering a compact and efficient solution for integrating and synchronizing sensors, all on a single circuit board.

The Power of Precision Time Protocol and Time-Sensitive Networking

At the heart of SentiBoard 2.0 lies Precision Time Protocol (PTP), a protocol that has become the gold standard for achieving sub-microsecond synchronization accuracy across Ethernet networks. PTP ensures that all sensors connected to SentiBoard 2.0 are perfectly synchronized, enabling precise data correlation and timestamping. 

SentiBoard 2.0 can act both as a Grandmaster (GM) clock (disciplined by a GNSS receiver, if available), or as a PTP slave, synchronizing the SentiBoard 2.0 clock to that of the network's GM. Either way, all serial sensors connected to the SentiBoard will all be timestamped and synchronized utilizing the network's understanding of time, in addition to an internal common reference clock.

SentiBoard 2.0 also harnesses the capabilities of Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN). TSN extends the capabilities of Ethernet networks to guarantee low-latency communication, even in busy network environments. This means that SentiBoard 2.0 can seamlessly integrate into existing Ethernet networks without sacrificing precision or reliability.

Key Features of SentiBoard 2.0

  1. Easy Integration: The board is designed for easy integration with a wide range of sensors, ensuring compatibility with your existing equipment. The standard version of the SentiBoard 2.0 provides a configurable variety of serial interfaces (SPI, UART, RS232, RS422, CAN, MIPI CSI2), the possibility to set up configurable trigger signals (image capture, sync pulses, etc.) and timing event captures (incoming sync. pulses, exposure active signals, etc.). This ensures maximum compatibility with your specific sensor suite.

  2. Real-time Data: With PTP and TSN, you can trust that your sensor data is always synchronized, up-to-date, and transferred securely over the network, enabling real-time decision-making. You can read more about the importance of timing and reliable network communication in our other blog post, "The Importance of Timing when Working with Sensors and Robotics".

  3. Reduced Complexity: SentiBoard 2.0 reduces the amount of hardware and cabling required to integrate and interface your sensor suite by standardizing the sensor interface for power, which is 3.3V and 5V selectable for each sensor port, but also for communication. This is achieved through the use of our SentIO interface cards which makes connecting your sensors truly plug&play. Our software handles the sensor data stream itself, providing the end user with a standardized data format output. This leaves more time to focus on domain specific challenges, and less time pulling your hair out struggling with bits & bytes, sensor driver development and obscure edge cases.

  4. Scalability & Reliability: SentiBoard 2.0 is highly scalable, allowing you to add more sensors and expand your sensor suite as needed. Built to meet stringent reliability standards, SentiBoard 2.0 speeds up development, minimizes downtime, and ensures consistent performance.

  5. Compact Design: SentiBoard 2.0 boasts a space-saving form factor (Standard; 12.2cm x 7.4cm, Light; 8.4cm x 8.9cm), making it suitable also for installations where space is limited.

Speed, Accuracy, and Reliability

SentiBoard 2.0 represents a significant leap forward in sensor integration and synchronization technology. By leveraging modern Ethernet standards like PTP and TSN, this novel circuit board offers a seamless and highly precise solution for a wide range of applications. With SentiBoard 2.0, your development team can focus on the stuff that matters; deploying, and increasing, your domain specific knowledge to create ever-improving and impressive autonomous products, not wasting precious time delving ever deeper into mundane integration and interfacing tasks and problems.

Investing in SentiBoard 2.0 means investing in the future of sensor integration and synchronization, and will empower you to make autonomous data-driven decisions with great speed, accuracy, and reliability.