The use of FPGA in field-oriented control of an induction machine

In this study, the feasibility of embedding the field oriented control (FOC) of an induction machine into field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) is investigated. An indirect FOC of an induction machine is simulated in a Matlab Simulink environment using a Xilinx System Generator implemented in a Xilinx Spartan-3 XC3S200 FPGA board. Design of the developed controller for the induction machine is simulated via a Simulink full digital platform. The resulting design has a flexible and modular structure where the designer can customize the hardware blocks by changing the number of inputs, outputs, and algorithm when it is compared to the designs implemented using classical microcontrollers and digital signal processors. With its flexibility, other control algorithms can easily be programmed and embedded into the FPGA. The controller developed can be imbedded and implemented on the Digilab S3 Spartan-3 XC3S200 FPGA development board produced by the Digilent Company. Performance of the developed system has been tested at different load torques and various induction machine speeds.