Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulations for FPGA-Based Digital Control Design.

Paiz C, Pohl C, Porrmann M. Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulations for FPGA-Based Digital Control Design. In: Andrade-Cetto J, Ferrier J-L, dias Pereira J'e MC, Filipe J, eds. Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics. Vol 3. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag; 2008: 355-372.A framework to perform hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations in the designflow of digital controllers, based on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology, is presented. The framework allows the interaction of digital controllers, implemented on our rapid prototyping system RAPTOR2000 with a Matlab/Simulink simulation running on a host computer. The underlying hardware and software designs supporting the interaction of the digital control and the simulation are presented. The designflow of FPGA-based digital controllers when using HIL is described and examples are given. Results from HIL simulations are presented, showing that the acceleration of the simulation increases with the complexity of the design when the number of I/Os stays constant. Furthermore, using the proposed HIL framework the clock accurate verification of the design can be achieved within the design phase