Design and Implementation of a Four-Channel Ultrasonic Flowmeter Based on the ZYNQ Platform

0 Introduction

In modern industrial production, the precise measurement of fluid flow is a critical link in ensuring efficient, safe, and reliable production processes. Whether in petrochemicals, natural gas transportation, or daily water management, high-precision, high-reliability flow measurement equipment is required. Ultrasonic flowmeters, with advantages such as non-invasive measurement, high precision, and wide turndown ratio, have been widely applied in the field of fluid flow monitoring and are gradually replacing traditional electromagnetic, differential pressure, and impeller flowmeters, becoming a key and hot research topic for flowmeters both domestically and internationally [1–4]. However, traditional ultrasonic flowmeter systems, such as solutions based on microcontrollers or combinations of microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), expose limitations such as insufficient data processing capability, restricted real-time performance, and complex circuitry when facing increasingly complex industrial monitoring demands with higher real-time requirements. These limitations severely restrict the accuracy and efficiency of flow measurement, making it difficult to meet modern industrial standards [5–16].

To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper proposes a novel solution based on an embedded system utilizing the ZYNQ platform. The ZYNQ-7020 chip integrates an ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor with FPGA Programmable Logic (PL), forming a flexible heterogeneous computing platform. This architectural breakthrough not only brings general software programming capabilities but also empowers designers with the ability to deeply customize the FPGA logic according to the