Control electronics module for flow control valve using FPGA

Abstract

Stepper motors have become popular in motion control systems because of its simplicity. Here an electronics module for stepper motor cum linear actuator is driven flow control valve using Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is proposed. FPGAs have been shown to provide high computational density and efficiency for many applications by sanctioning circuits to be customized to any area of interest. FPGAs additionally support programmability by sanctioning the circuit to be transmuted at a later time through reconfiguration. The FPGAs can be used for highly parallel system implementation. There is great interest in exploiting these benefits in space and other radiation environments. In this system an FPGA based flow control valve is proposed to regulate flow using a stepper motor. The module consists mainly of FPGA, EEPROM, H-bridge type power amplifier, ADC and stepper motor. In the given system FPGA gets the number of pulses from the Look-up Table (LUT) in the EEPROM. Based on that the H-bridge power amplifier is operated in chopped current mode. The H-bridge power amplifier will drive the stepper motor based on the direction of coil currents. Hence the flow is regulated.