Hardware Implementation of Statecharts for FPGA-based Control in Scientific Facilities

Abstract

The problem of generating complex synchronization patterns using automated tools is addressed in this paper. This work was originally motivated by the need of fast and jitter free synchronization in scientific facilities, where a large number of sensors and actuators must be controlled at the right time in a variety of situations. Programmable processors cannot meet the real-time requirements, forcing to use dedicated circuits to produce and transmit the control signals. Designing application specific hardware by hand is a slow and error-prone task. Hence, a set of tools is required that allow specifying the control systems in a clear and efficient way and producing synthesizable HDL (hardware description language) code in an automated manner. Statechart diagrams have been selected as the input method, and this work focuses on how to translate those diagrams into HDL code. We present a tool that analyzes a Statecharts specification and implements the required control systems using FPGAs. A number of solutions are provided to deal with multiple triggering events and concurrent super-states. Also, an alternative microprogrammed implementation is proposed.