A new FPGA based control system for electrical propulsion with electronic differential

In this paper we present a new fully integrated control system in a System-on-Chip (SoC) suitable to implement the controller for a Neighbourhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) based on FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) technology. A prototype has been designed specifically to meet the requirement of low cost and it contains all of the active functions required to implement the electronic differential. The controller uses Field Oriented Control (FOC) techniques with offline parametric identification of the motors to enhance its performance. A PC based user interface allows easy controller configuration, data acquisition and performance analysis. The functionality of the electronic differential is verified through experiments with a bench test equipment equivalent to the actual system. The experimental results show that the proposed controller is able to follow the reference torque and curvature angle with a good dynamic and relatively low error.