Chopper-controlled PMDC motor drive using VHDL code

In many industrial applications it is necessary to convert a constant-voltage DC (direct current) source into a variable-voltage/variable-current source for the speed control of the DC motor drive. The variable DC voltage is controlled by chopping the input voltage by varying the on and off times of a converter, and the type of converter capable of such a function is known as a chopper. This work presents a chopper control using VHDL (very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language - VHSIC-HDL) language to control a PMDC motor (permanent magnetic direct current). The simulation is performed using two programs: MATLAB/Simulink and ModelSim, working in a co-simulation mode, provided by Link for ModelSim toolbox from Simulink. While the motor and inverter dynamics is performed in MATLAB, the control algorithm of the chopper runs in the ModelSim program. The simulation results are presented and analyzed in this work.