and one has a complete hardware solution?
That said, it's a cool project, even if it doesn't have a practical use.
Quote:
> The hardware is designed for pedagogical and prototyping purposes. Common applications include:
> - Pulse-echo / A-mode imaging — the core use case (details)
> - Non-destructive testing — crack detection, material characterization (details)
> - Ultrasound tomography — transmission and reflection modes (details)
> - Array imaging — synthetic aperture beamforming with the MUX PMOD extension
> - Transducer characterization — test and evaluate piezoelectric probes (compatible probes)
> - Signal processing research — a flexible platform for new methods
Congrats, now you have capture synchronized to pulse start "providing the sub-microsecond timing needed for ultrasound acquisition".
If your microcontroller has a parallel port interface, you would use the clock setup you described. This works, I've done it before, but there was very little CPU left to do anything useful with the data.
It's neat that they used the PIO, its demonstrating how that peripheral fills a niche where you things that might have been impossible without an FPGA, suddenly become doable on a microcontroller.
I can assure you these use cases are hard to achieve with a standard STM32 as someone whos almost finished with their PhD in mid-air ultrasonics.
In short, PIOs are really a game changer, I have dumped a FPGA from the previous iteration to go rp2040.
BUT... solutions like some of PIC32 and their integrated 40Msps ADC are really nice and worth exploring (if I had the time). The positive thing about the pico is that it's so common and tools are so common that it's really a pleasure developping on this device =)