FPGA applied to the control of DC-AC converters using repetitive and feedforward control laws

Abstract

There is a current and notable growth in the number of Electrical Engineering applications that incorporate devices known asthe Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Such devices can be defined as an integrated circuit, which can be configured to exercise a specific function at any moment after its manufacture. The present study puts forward an example for the application of this device in the area of Power Electronics, centered on a particular use in output voltage control of a sinusoidal PWM inverter. All the control elements of the inverter unit, the generation of the sinusoidal reference signal, the error calculation, the repetitive along with PD-feedforward control actions and the unipolar PWM modulation are all embedded on the FPGA. The level at which FPGA evolution has occurred is not restricted only to hardware, but as shown in this study, the developmental software also presents a high level of abstraction, which avoids low level programming, thus accelerating development. With the aim of demonstrating the applicable viability of the FPGA in Power Electronics, experimental results are provided for a classic application encountered in the Literature. Configuration details are also presented for the FPGA, through use of the System Generator pack.