Re: Proposal for a general purpose control subsytem.

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005, NZG wrote:

> I recently submitted this to one of my professors proposing a project to
> develop a hardware subsystem for control.
> The idea is to implement the Orocos system, but instead of relying on an RTOS,
> offload the processing to a specific hardware coprocessor.
Interesting project topic :-)
> The processor would be a soft core that could then be easily extended to meet
> the needs of specific systems, only the orocos driver would need to be
> implemented as the low level SPI type drivers would be handled directly by
> the coprocessor.

I've supervised two students this year that have done something simpler,
but in the same direction: they programmed an FPGA to implement the
lowest-level velocity control loop, and offer a simple digital interface to
the PC, via its parallel port. Worked fine, for about 300 EUR.

> My abstract is pasted below.
> I thought I'd throw this out there and see what reaction I get.
> Comments? Suggestions? Reasons why I'm insane?

I think it is (i) possible, (ii) relevant, and (iii) marketable. But only
for controllers that have a fixed architecture and functionality. (Which is
still by far the largest number of (to be) installed systems...)

And control loops indeed require only very limited functionalities from the
processor. (Unless you want to control redundant 7 DOF robot arms, with
full dynamic model in the loop...)

> 5. A sensor input bus from which state data is obtained. 
This is the core advantage of your concept, I think: getting the data from
the sensors and to the actuators is a very repetitive task, which can
optimally be done in an FPGA.

Let us know when you start the project :-)

Herman

--
   K.U.Leuven, Mechanical Eng.,  Mechatronics & Robotics Research Group
     <http://people.mech.kuleuven.be/~bruyninc> Tel: +32 16 322480

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