Bradley University

Senior Project, 2002

FPGA Implementation of a PID Controller

System Level Block Diagram

Created By: Paul Leisher

Advised By: Dr. T. Stewart

Last Revised: November 14, 2001

Speed Motor
Cmd. Digital PWM DC Motor Shaft
Signal PID Controller Sys. System Velocity

Frequency
To
Digital
Figure 1:
Top Level Block Diagram

The top-level system block diagram illustrates the Digital PID Controller and
DC Motor System in a closed loop configuration. The Motor Shaft Velocity will be
fed back and confirmed with the Speed Command Signal to drive the system by
means of an error signal. This diagram can be seen in figure 1.

Individual Block Descriptions

Error PWM
Signal Digital Cmd.
PID Controller Signal

Figure 2:
I/O of Digital PID Controller

The Error Signal is essentially the combination of the desired speed and the
motor shaft speed. The PID Controller will use this signal to compute an output
signal. The output signal will be the PWM Command signal. The PID Controller will
produce the PWM Command signal based on the required input speed and the
actual speed of the motor. This will insure that the system is linear with respect to
the input speed command signal to the motor shaft velocity. This description can be
seen in figure 2.

2
 PWM
Cmd. PWM PWM
Signal
Signal System

Figure 3:
I/O of PWM System

The PWM System receives a command signal that will then be used to
produce the desired percent duty cycled signal that will be the output of this
subsystem. The PWM system can be seen in figure 3.

Motor
PWM DC Motor Shaft
Signal
System Velocity

Figure 4:
I/O of DC Motor System

The input to the DC Motor System is a PWM Signal that will be used
combined with hardware to control the speed of the motor. The output to this
subsystem is a signal generated by an encoder mounted on the rotor of the motor.
The encoder produces a signal with the frequency of the signal directly related to
the speed of the rotor. The encoder signal will be checked with the desired input
speed signal to confirm the motor is at the correct speed. This description can be
seen in figure 4.

Motor Digital
Shaft Frequency to Speed
Velocity Digital Signal

Figure 5:
I/O of Frequency to Digital Converter

The Frequency to Digital Converter takes the motor shaft velocity as an input, which
is the signal sent from the encoder on the DC motor. First the signal will be
converted to a voltage. This voltage can then be sent through an A/D converter to
get digital representation of the motor shaft velocity. This can be seen in figure 5.