Event-driven approach to control mechatronic system with FPGA

A mechatronic system consists of a mechanical system and electric actuators. The event-driven control of a mechatronic system was implemented on a field-programmable gate-array (FPGA) platform. The supervisor provides robust, safe, and transparent control, where the FSM defines all the possible directions for implementation. In order make supervisor more transparent, the FSM was divided into three main parts, with three main colours (green, yellow and red - semaphore). These colours indicate the condition of the system. The supervisor was upgraded with a Graphic user interface (GUI) with indicators that directly show the state of the FSM. The GUI includes additional logical I/O signals, in order to make system more useful. The supervisor is executed parallel with the basic motor control on the FPGA. This paper presents the robust current controller of the brushless ac (BLAC) motor, upgraded with a classical PI velocity controller. The application of the proposed ECA-based method is illustrated using the example of the FSM motion control of a BLAC motor with integrated I/O signals.