Motor control is at the core of many industrial automation and motion/servo drive control applications. Motor control systems are widely used in industrial processes such as production, assembly, packaging, robotics, CNC machine tools, and printing. The architecture is typically a feedback system consisting of the building blocks shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Representation of a Typical Motion/Servo Motor Control System
Unlike traditional drive technologies based on ASICs, ASSPs, microcontrollers, and digital signal processing (DSP) devices, a design based on a single FPGA platform offers you increased flexibility. You can integrate all your motor control functions on one device allowing you to enhance drive performance, improve network communications, implement embedded processors, and meet custom logic requirements. You can reconfigure the FPGA at any time, even in the field, to meet changing market requirements. This approach uses less board space and a lower component count. This integration and flexibility leads to a reduced time to market and lower cost of ownership. If you are concerned about product obsolescence risk, Altera® FPGAs (like the Cyclone® III device family) typically have a long life cycle and allow you to migrate your intellectual property (IP)/solutions to new FPGA families. Refer to Figure 2 for a Cyclone III-based motor control block diagram.
Figure 2. Motor Control, I/O Logic, and Industrial Ethernet Solution on a Cyclone III FPGA Platform
