Gated Sampling

The Gated Sampling option is used to control the start and stop of recording or signal generation, by the level of an externally applied TTL Gate signal. This option is often used to record or generate a series of high-speed signals without needing to re-start the board after each recording. Examples include RADAR, Lidar and spectroscopy applications.

Data is only recorded or replayed if the external gate signal is equal to a programmed level (TTL HIGH or TTL LOW). Gated Sampling can be used together with the Time Stamp option to record the start and end times of a gate interval.

Recording
The user prepares the measurement by defing the total number of samples to be recorded. Once the UltraFast board is started, the recording starts when the Gate signal changes level and stops when the Gate level returns. The process will repeat each time the Gate signal changes level. The recorded data segments are sequentially stored into memory. If your application requires you to extract and process each segment, it will be necessary to also use the Time Stamp option when recording so that start and end time markers are recorded.

Signal Generation / Replay
The user prepares the board by defining the number of samples that need to be generated. The memory is then filled with the signal (or signals if multi-channel output).

Each time that the Gate changes to the replay level, data is transferred from the memory and the signal(s) are generated. When the Gate signal level changes again, the output is stopped. The Time Stamp option can be used if you would like to record the times when signal output was started and stopped.

Pretrigger is not available when using Gated Sampling. This option is compatible all of the UltraFast board.

See also:
- Multiple Recording
- Multiple Replay
- Time Stamp - Gated Sampling