Development of a reconfigurable platform for manufacturing equipment control

In modern manufacturing equipment control area, controller is required to deliver higher computing capability for adopting advanced algorithms to meet speed and accuracy requirements, and reconfigurabilities for changing or (and) adding features or functions. This paper presents a methodology in design and implementation of a high performance and reconfigurable platform for manufacturing equipment control. This methodology is in virtue of system on a programmable chip (SoPC) technology but replacing the on-chip processor by an external high performance, floating-point digital signal processor (DSP). The application of the DSP is designed as a multi-threaded framework, which has more flexibilities than a traditional single-loop one. Furthermore, the field programmable gate array (FPGA) system can be reconfigured easily and quickly to meet a new requirement by dragging and dropping pre-built components in a SoPC building environment. As a result, the controller platform is more reconfigurable in terms of algorithms and functions. This platform is implemented in a 3-axis milling machine control and the result indicates that the design and implementation presented in this paper is feasible.