Recent Advancements in FPGA-based controllers for AC Drives Applications

The aim of this paper is to present recent advancements in the field of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based controllers for AC drives applications. Firstly, the benefits of using FPGA components for this kind of applications will be reminded. It will be shown that these benefits can be general to all types of drive applications or more specific to niches like aircraft applications. Then, several practical examples will be given which have demonstrated the high level of performances that can be reached with FPGA-based controllers. All these controllers were designed for synchronous motor drive applications but their extension to other types of machines is a quite straightforward process. The proposed examples are current and well reflect the ever increasing complexity of the control algorithms to be implemented. These examples are respectively a predictive current controller, a sensorless drive based on an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and another sensorless drive based on a high frequency voltage component injection technique. This last application has been designed for an industrial aircraft Brushless Synchronous Starter/Generator (BSSG) of 40kVA. The last part of the paper is devoted to the latest developments in terms of System-on-Chip (SoC) architecture. A special focus is made on a methodology which aims to optimize the Hw/Sw partitioning of the tasks to be executed. Finally, conclusions are drawn and perspectives given.