Development of control system for multi-converter High voltage Power supply using programmable SoC

Currently, as the requirements for simple implementations in the motor control technologies increase, System-on-Chip (SoC) device such as Zynq All Programmable SoC was devised to meet those requirements. Because this CPU and FPGA can be assembled into one SoC device, we can consolidate motor-control functions and additional processing tasks into a single SoC device. The control algorithms, networking and other tasks, are off-loaded to the programmable logic that can include multiple control cores and multiple control system. This SoC system with a single chip can allow the hardware design with a single chip, hence, we can implement to control the motor to be simpler, more reliable, and less expensive. In this paper, in order to implement motor controller, we apply latest All Programmable SoC technologies for humanoid robot or industrial device that is integrated with FPGA technologies and embedded processor technologies. We also propose the structure of motor controller that decentralizes the function of motor driver from previous typical motor driver into FPGA and level of embedded processor by using All Programmable SoC for humanoid robot or industrial device. We verify the possibilities of applying the novel implemented motor controller in Zynq EPP (Extensible Processing Platform) which is one kind of All Programmable SoC made by Xilinx. To do this, we perform velocity control and position control with digital PI controller on the BLDC motor.

Since embedded systems have such a wide range of applications in today's time, there is a pressing need to meet the design requirements such as power consumption, cost, time to market, flexibility and robustness. Power consumption by embedded systems is a particularly critical issue. This paper is a starting point for understanding power aware design methodologies, and it reviews the various techniques of designing power efficient embedded systems using Programmable System on Chip (PSoC). PSoC is a true programmable embedded SoC (System on Chip) which integrates configurable analog and digital components, memory and a microcontroller on a single chip thus providing high level of flexibility and configurability.

Optimization strategies for neural network deployment on FPGA: An energy-efficient real-time face detection use case

The article describes a structural and functional model of a self-driving car control system, which generates a wide class of mathematical problems. Currently, control systems for self-driving cars are considered at several levels of abstraction and implementation: Mechanics, electronics, perception, scene recognition, control, security, integration of all subsystems into a solid system. Modern research often considers particular problems to be solved for each of the levels separately. In this paper, a parameterized model of the integration of individual components into a complex control system for a self-driving car is considered. Such a model simplifies the design and development of self-driving control systems with configurable automation tools, taking into account the specifics of the solving problem. The parameterized model can be used for CAD design in the field of self-driving car development. A full cycle of development of a control system for a self-driving truck was implemented, which was rub in the “Robocross 2021” competition. The software solution was tested on more than 40 launches of a self-driving truck. Parameterization made it possible to speed up the development of the control system, expressed in man-hours, by 1.5 times compared to the experience of the authors of the article who participated in the same competition in 2018 and 2019. The proposed parameterization was used in the development of individual CAD elements described in this article. Additionally, the implementation of specific modules and functions is a field for experimental research.

While conventional rule based, real time flow control of sewer systems is in common use, control systems based on fuzzy logic have been used only rarely, but successfully. The intention of this study is to compare a conventional rule based control of a combined sewer system with a fuzzy logic control by using hydrodynamic simulation. The objective of both control strategies is to reduce the combined sewer overflow volume by an optimization of the utilized storage capacities of four combined sewer overflow tanks. The control systems affect the outflow of four combined sewer overflow tanks depending on the water levels inside the structures. Both systems use an identical rule base. The developed control systems are tested and optimized for a single storm event which affects heterogeneously hydraulic load conditions and local discharge. Finally the efficiencies of the two different control systems are compared for two more storm events. The results indicate that the conventional rule based control and the fuzzy control similarly reach the objective of the control strategy. In spite of the higher expense to design the fuzzy control system its use provides no advantages in this case.

A low-cost, low-power and autonomous orbit determination system on chip for micro-satellites is proposed to solve the problems of high-cost, large-volume, high-power and low autonomous on traditional orbit determination systems. Using system on programmable chip (SoPC) as the hardware platform, and a 3-degree magnetometer with low power consumption is integrated in it. The state equations based on the satellite orbit dynamic equation are built and the observation equations with geomagnetic field vector are derived with the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) model. The accurate output of position and velocity of micro-satellites are acquired by Extending Kalman Filter (EKF). To verify the feasibility of the system, a ground simulation system is designed with a magnetic simulator. Test results indicate that the system can reach the medium accuracy of micro-satellites orbit determination and can serve for micro-satellites with low position and velocity errors.

This paper concentrates on development and experimental investigation of a compound control system designed for tilt stability of a narrow commuter vehicle. The control system is a combination of three different types of control schemes: Steering Tilt Control (STC) system, Direct Tilt Control (DTC) system and Tilt Brake system. These schemes utilize different types of actuators and offer complementary advantages over different ranges of operating speeds. The design of the control system is discussed. Then the combined STC-DTC system is first validated by running standard vehicle maneuver experiments such as turns and lane changes. The performance of the Tilt Brake algorithm is then verified for different low speed maneuvers. The feasibility of a stand alone DTC system is also experimentally investigated. Finally different experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effect of desired tilt angle definition on the handling of a narrow tilting vehicle.

The temperature control performance of a developed temperature feedback control system was experimentally investigated. The control system was based on a real-time temperature control of a cooling fluid. In particular, this study focused on the temperature control performance of a built-in motor spindle that used the developed temperature fedback control system. The built-in motor used in the study had water cooling jackets. The temperature of the built-in motor spindle was measured and feedback into the developed temperature feedback control system. Temperature control accuracy of the built-in motor spindle under steady state was then assessed. Furthermore, the effects of the time-variant changes in spindle rotation and ambient temperature on the performance of the temperature control system was investigated. The results of the experiments show that the temperature control accuracy of the built-in motor spindle under steady state condition was ±0.03°C. The temperature control performance of the built-in motor spindle under changes in the rotational speed of the spindle was examined. The experimental results show that the temperature change of the spindle could be suppressed to a maximum of approximately 0.3°C under transient state during sudden change in spindle speed. In addition, the effects of the changes in ambient and cooling water temperatures, which simulated actual environmental operating conditions, on the spindle temperature were investigated. The results show that the change in the spindle temperature could be suppressed by approximately less than ±0.1°C. These experimental results indicate that the developed temperature feedback control system achieved high temperature control accuracy and high response for the built-in motor spindle. In particular, the developed control system successfully controlled the time-variant change in the generated heat, thereby improving the thermal stability of the machine tool spindle.

The high performance of control systems essentially depends on the accuracy of the readable information which make embedded systems more effective by the execution of any instruction. But the universe is full of random information that can be described as chaos. In one hand, soft computing can present a perfect solution for random activities in control systems. It adds a new point of view and optimized one for the creation of new software approaches for control systems. In the other hand, FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) is a suitable hardware platform to apply these new ideas, but we will choose PSoC (Programmable System on Chip) which is a revolutionary programmable system that can create a hall different one every time. In this paper, we have tried theoretically, to combine these two aspects to come up with a hardware-software co-design by finding ways to translate soft computing aspects such as fuzzy logic algorithm: the surface polynomial modeling, to hardware programmable blocks.

To improve the performance of data processing in radar testing, a new design is proposed to realize the serial real-time communication. This design is based on ZYNQ, a kind of all programmable SoC produced by Xilinx. The ZYNQ SoC resource is composed of two parts: the processing system (PS) and the programmable logic (PL). Compared with the conventional communication and processing systems based on FPGA and PXI bus, this new design has several advantages and compatibility. The hardware of this design consist of core board with ZYNQ, PXI-bus interface, serial communication ports such as RS-485, RS-422, and RS-232, configuration ports such as USB, Ethernet, and UART. Meanwhile, the software of this design is divided into two parts: upper visual software and embedded software in the PS. To realize the key 10ms real-time communication demand, an accurate timing module is designed in the PL. The experimental results show that the new design only cost about 4 ms to operate the whole communication and data calculation. In addition, the complex serial communication protocols and the control commands are configurable with UI.

System-on-chip (SoC) architectures are a heterogeneous mix of microprocessors, custom accelerators, memories, interfaces, peripherals, and other resources. These resources communicate using complex on-chip interconnect networks that attempt to quickly and efficiently arbitrate memory transactions whose behaviors can vary drastically depending on the current mode of operation and system operating state. Security- and safety-critical applications require access control policies that define how these resources interact to ensure that malicious and unsafe behaviors do not occur. <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Aker</small> is a design and verification framework for on-chip access control. The core of <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Aker</small> is the access control wrapper (ACW)–a high-performance yet efficient hardware module that dynamically arbitrates on-chip communications. <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Aker</small> distributes ACWs across the SoC and programs them to perform local access control. <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Aker</small> provides a firmware generation tool and a property-driven security verification methodology to ensure that the ACWs are properly integrated and configured. <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Aker</small> security verification confirms that the ACW behaves properly at IP level. It verifies the hardware root of trust firmware configures the ACW correctly. And it evaluates system-level security threats due to interactions between shared resources. <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Aker</small> is experimentally validated on a Xilinx UltraScale+ programmable SoC. Additionally, an <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Aker</small> access control system is integrated into the OpenPULP multicore archtiecture that uses OpenTitan hardware root-of-trust for firmware configuration.

To meet increasingly stringent fuel economy and emissions legislation, more advanced technologies have been added to spark-ignition (SI) engines, thus exponentially increase the complexity and calibration work of traditional map-based engine control. To achieve better engine performance without introducing significant calibration efforts and make the developed control system easily adapt to future engines upgrades and designs, this research proposes a model-based optimal control system for cycle-by-cycle Gasoline Turbocharged Direct Injection (GTDI) SI engine control, which aims to deliver the requested torque output and operate the engine to achieve the best achievable fuel economy and minimum emission under wide range of engine operating conditions. This research develops a model-based ignition timing prediction strategy for combustion phasing (crank angle of fifty percent of the fuel burned, CA50) control. A control-oriented combustion model is developed to predict burn duration from ignition timing to CA50. Using the predicted burn duration, the ignition timing needed for the upcoming cycle to track optimal target CA50 is calculated by a dynamic ignition timing prediction algorithm. A Recursive-Least-Square (RLS) with Variable Forgetting Factor (VFF) based adaptation algorithm is proposed to handle operating-point-dependent model errors caused by inherent errors resulting from modeling assumptions and limited calibration points, which helps to ensure the proper performance of model-based ignition timing prediction strategy throughout the entire engine lifetime. Using the adaptive combustion model, an Adaptive Extended Kalman Filter (AEKF) based CA50 observer is developed to provide filtered CA50 estimation from cyclic variations for the closed-loop combustion phasing control. An economic nonlinear model predictive controller (E-NMPC) based GTDI SI engine control system is developed to simultaneously achieve three objectives: tracking the requested net indicated mean effective pressure (IMEPn), minimizing the SFC, and reducing NOx emissions. The developed E-NMPC engine control system can achieve the above objectives by controlling throttle position, IVC timing, CA50, exhaust valve opening (EVO) timing, and wastegate position at the same time without violating engine operating constraints. A control-oriented engine model is developed and integrated into the E-NMPC to predict future engine behaviors. A high-fidelity 1-D GT-POWER engine model is developed and used as the plant model to tune and validate the developed control system. The performance of the entire model-based engine control system is examined through the software-in-the-loop (SIL) simulation using on-road vehicle test data.

This paper addresses formal validation of distributed logic controllers represented in Visual Flowchart Language (VFL) that is a high-level programming language used in industrial automation. Traditional validation approaches based on simulation become obsolete in reconfigurable manufacturing systems where complex machines have decentralized control and are built by reuse of components. The source code based validation is also important for OEMs to unify their development procedures from embedded systems to machine controllers. For modeling the VFL design we used net condition/event systems (NCES) - a modular formalism developed for modeling systems with distributed states such as closed-loop control systems in distributed mechatronic devices. The methodology was implemented in software tools automatically generating the model's modules given the controller's source code. Then the hierarchical NCES model is assembled into a place/transition net that is subjected to model checking. The proposed approach facilitates integration of formal validation into software/hardware development in control systems' engineering.

1 - The Basics

High-level synthesis (HLS) enables designing at a higher level of abstraction to effectively cope with design complexity of emerging applications on modern programmable system-on-chip (SoC). While HLS continues to evolve with a growing set of algorithms, methodologies, and tools to efficiently map software designs onto optimized hardware architectures, there continues to lack realistic benchmark applications with sufficient complexity and enforceable constraints. In this paper we present a case study of accelerating face detection based on the Viola Jones algorithm on a programmable SoC using a C-based HLS flow. We also share our insights in porting a software-based design into a synthesizable implementation with HLS-specific data structures and optimizations. Our design is able to achieve a frame rate of 30 frames per second which is suitable for realtime applications. Our performance and quality of results are comparable to those of many traditional RTL implementations.