Design and FPGA-implementation of a PID controller for temperature control in a refrigeration system

Abstract

Objectives: The universal controller PID (Proportional-Integra-Derivative) is widely used in automation systems. Methods: This work is focused to develop a PID controller for a refrigeration system in order to implement it in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) by using the Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL). Firstly, the nonlinear model of the refrigeration system is presented by a third order state system and simulated under Matlab/Simulink environment to develop its PID controller, which is aimed to adjust the indoor temperature. Further, the synthetizable program of the PID algorithm has been implemented on a Map Altera DE0-nano Kit using the Quartus II software. Findings: The performance of the proposed controller has been successfully validated with good tracking results. Application: The FPGA target presents a good solution to implement the PID algorithm. Keywords: FPGA-Implementation, PID Controller, Quartus II, Refrigeration System, Temprature Control, Altera DE0-Nano Kit.