The use of field programmable gate array (FPGA) in direct torque control of induction motor

In this paper, the feasibility of embedding the direct torque control (DTC) of an induction machine into field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) is investigated. DTC of an induction machine is simulated in a MATLAB/Simulink environment using a Xilinx system generator. The resulting design has a flexible and modular structure where the designer can customize the hardware blocks by changing the number of inputs, outputs, and algorithm when it is compared to the designs implemented using classical microcontrollers and digital signal processors. With its flexibility, other control algorithms can easily be programmed and embedded into the FPGA. The above system has been implemented on Xilinx Spartan 3A DSP FPGA controller. Simulation and experimentation have been performed to prove the validity of the proposed methodology. © 2013 South China University of Technology, Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.