A comparative design view for accurate control of servos using a field programmable gate array

Abstract

An embedded system is a special-purpose computer system designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions. Altera DSP Builder presents designers and users with an alternate approach when creating their systems by employing a blockset similar to that already used in Simulink. The application considered in this paper is the design of a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) system for use in stereo vision. PWM can replace a digital-to-analogue converter to control audio speakers, LED intensity, motor speed, and servo position. Rather than the conventional HDL coding approach this Simulink approach provides an easy understanding platform to the PWM design. This paper includes a comparison between two approaches regarding resource usage and flexibility etc. Included is how DSP Builder manipulates an onboard clock signal, in order to create the control pulses to the "raw" coding of a PWM generator in VHDL. Both methods were shown to a selection of people and their views on which version they would subsequently use in their relative fields is discussed.