The LOGi boards will be returning to their home roots, Maker Faire New York 2013.   Last year we took the alpha version FPGA Mark-1, now LOGi-Mark1, to Maker Faire to see what other FPGA and electronics enthusiasts would think of the design.  We got a lot of great feedback and now have some new FPGA flavors including the LOGi-Pi,LOGi-Bone and the LOGi-Mark1.  We also have some fun applications that we wish to share that highlight the capability of the FPGA LOGi Family boards.

LOGi FPGA Family

FPGA LOGi Boards at Maker Faire NYC 2013

We will be in Zone C at the Maker Pavilion - see linked map!

Valent F(x) and the LOGi-Team have developed a Family of FPGA development boards based on last years Maker Faire 2013 NYC entry, FPGA-Mark1.  We brought FPGA-Mark1 to Maker Faire in order to get feedback in regard to what users were interested in relative to FPGA’s and how they would most like to interface and use an FPGA development board.  We took the feedback and have a developed a family of FPGA development boards that implement the feedback that we received last year.  We want to bring the family of FPGA development boards back to Maker Faire to show the users and to ask for any feedback or changes that they might be interested in before we release the boards to the market.  We have a number of applications that that exemplify the easy to use and highly functional nature that the LOGi boards have to offer.

The LOGi series is a family of FPGA development boards that mitigates the sharp learning curve associated with associated FPGA development and unifies existing hardware interfaces and platforms. FPGA development is an invaluable technology that allows a single board to morph in functionality to fit the needs of changing environments and project and application requirements. The LOGi Family FPGA boards allow beginning or experienced FPGA developers a plug-and-play experience with popular embedded systems including the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone and the Arduino DUE. The LOGi Team and the LOGi family of boards create a closed loop development solution.  The LOGi development boards include applications and hardware for a low-cost, easy-to-use, highly-functional FPGA development solution that complements current COTS hardware peripherals and systems.>

Projects using the LOGi Boards that will be demonstrated:

Bitcoin Mining Rig with the LOGi Boards

The Bitcoin Mining Rig will showcase how the LOGi-Pi or the LOGi-Bone can be used in conjunction with the Raspberry Pi or the Beaglebone to create a fully functional Bitcoin Mining Rig.  The LOGi FPGA board handle all of the highly intensive cryptographic number processing involved in the bitcoin authentication process while the Raspberry Pi serves to interconnect the miner to the internet through its ethernet connection.

Machine Vision with the LOGi Boards

The LOGi boards in conjunction with the Beaglebone or Raspberry Pi create a standalone streaming machine vision platform.  This  image processing application runs real-time DSP algorithms to create machine vision functionality on the FPGA. Current filters  implemented are:  1) unfiltered 2) Guassian Filter 3) Sobel Filter 4) Harris Filter. The processed image is sent to the Pi or the beaglebone, where it is then transported and viewed on an ethernet connected PC using the MJPEG streamer.  The image is viewed through a local web browser that displays the streamed video.

Autonomous Vehicle and Robot controller using the LOGi-Pi and the Raspberry Pi

The LOGI-Bot is an autonomous vehicle or general robot controller that utilizes the the general processing of the Raspberry Pi in conjunction with the real-time processing of the LOGi FPGA boards..  Some of the functionality contained within the LOGi-Bot include image processing, PWM, PID control, Encoder counting, WIFI comm, GPS.  The LOGi-Bot autonomous vehicle controller (AVC) will be installed on an R/C car and basic autonmous functions will be demonstrated.

Animatronic Telepresence Device

This project, by Jonathan Piat, shows the use of the Rapsberry Pi and the LOGi-Pi as a telepresence device. Instead of building a two way video and audio communication device, this demo relies on the use of an animatronic face to reflect the emotion of the distant user (dynamic emoticon). The audio communication is implemented by a SIP client (linphone) running on a raspberry Pi, while the face animation is handheld by the LOGi-Pi. The LOGi-Pi controls servos (eyebrow and mouth), led matrices (eyes) and RGB leds (hairs) with the onboard FPGA at minimal computing cost for the raspberry pi. This demo will be used as a way for the visitor to interact with a distant LOGi-Pi developer in France.>

Andy Gikling of the LOGi-Team will have his own booth where he will be presenting his own robot based on the LOGi-Mark1 board.  Be sure to stop by and check out Andy's great project!