25th IEEE Real Time Conference - La Biodola, Elba, Italy

Application of the FPGA Coprocessor TM FAST for Siemens S7-1500 PLCs in Neutron Instruments

27 May 2026, 11:05

1h

Elena Room (Hotel Hermitage)

Poster presentation Real Time Diagnostics, Digital Twin, Control, Monitoring, Safety and Security Real Time Diagnostics, Digital Twin, Control, Monitoring, Safety and Security - PS

Speaker

Harald Kleines

Description

The Siemens FPGA Coprocessor TM FAST for Siemens S7-1500 PLCs supports processing times in the order 50ns, which is several orders of magnitude below the PLC cycle time, as well as count rates in the order of a few MHz.
Since TM FAST supports isochronous mode, the TM fast processing cycle can be synchronized with PLC tasks as well with the PROFINET of PROFIBUS decentral devices. This allows the usage of TM FAST in motion applications, e.g. for the readout of encoders with protocols not support by standard Siemens PLC modules or for the synchronization between detectors and motion axes.
Another typical application is the readout of simple detectors, e.g. neutron monitors or Helium-3 proportional counters. Due to the lower limit of PLC cycle times and the limited IO size of TM FAST, it has only limited capabilities for the readout of time resolved detectors which requires careful consideration.