International Conference on Intelligent Information Systems and Management (IISM2010), June10-12, 2010

A Control Design Approach Using FPGA Based Reconfigurable Virtual Panel

Jovitha Jerome and V. Ranganayaki
Abstract---This paper describes concepts of virtual instrumentation applied to design the reconfigurable virtual instrument cluster in which speedometer, fuel gauge and engine temperature gauge, gear position indicators and warning lamps are commonly available. Aim is to design virtual instrument cluster and display it in TFT monitor, for good accuracy and to create rich environment. The novelty of this approach is the use of both reconfigurable displays (for developing the cars displays) and virtual instrumentation issues for developing a high-level abstraction testing and simulation environment. The implemented platform permits (a) To acquire the travel parameters directly and also to create user defined commands that are used to change the properties like background color, slider, marker value and maximum scale range. (b) To simulate the measurement process parameters like speed, temperature, fuel level and gear position in a virtual environment, using a virtual instrumentation approach. The parameters of car measurement system are developed with the help of FPGA and simulation will be provided with LabVIEW [1]-[2]. The communication between the simulator and the FPGA measurement system are accomplished through a serial interface in which a RS-232 based protocol is implemented. The user can select commands from the menu based application to change the property of the displays. This approach opens a great variety of possibilities to validate and simulate solutions for several problems in mechatronic areas. The tests and initial overall system validation are accomplished in the simulation environment. This approach makes possible to test and to validate the measurement parameters with low cost and more safety. Keywords---FPGA, Reconfigurable Devices, SoC, Virtual Instrumentation I. INTRODUCTION HE great complexity of the current systems, involving mechanical, electromechanical, electronic and computational parts stimulates the introduction of new design methodologies. An important point is that the design methodologies must offer high abstraction level for simulation/verification tasks during the overall design. Several hardware manufacturers offer design tools, allowing verification/simulation of the electronics system in a high abstraction level. Similar methodologies can be applied for the design of mechanical or software modules of a complex system. The problem becomes difficult for testing, validating or verifying the whole system. In this case it is possible to use the virtual instrumentation approach in order to represent the overall system on a high abstraction level. The use of instrument panel [3] of the motor cars is essential for an increased feeling of safety. Any subjective decisions regarding further actions performed during travel are made by the driver on the basis of objective readings obtained from the installed indicators and individual warning lamps. The more data are received by the driver, the more complete is his knowledge of the vehicle condition. The time of receipt of the information on vehicle condition by the driver is also important. Considering these assumptions from technical point of view, high reliability, legibility of displayed information and the certainty that such information will be received by the driver are the basic requirements to be met by the instrument panel. The concept will be presented for an integrated instrument panel design with the vehicle condition data and travel parameters of the vehicle displayed on the screen. Any information and signals received by means of data acquisition through FPGA hardware system. The application created in LabVIEW programming environment is used for the interpretation of information received from vehicle. The possibility to adapt the cockpit appearance to the requirements of the user is another advantage of the solution in comparison with conventional instrument panels. Any modifications of needles color, background of indicators and position changes are much easier and direct adaptation of the cockpit appearance to the taste of the user actually driving the vehicle is also possible. This paper describes a new design flow for the design of complex systems, which involves the application of reconfigurable devices (for implementing the electronic control modules) and the virtual instrumentation issues. The aim is to create complete virtual instrument enabling the signal detection, analysis of obtained information and displaying of results as well as simulating the operation of a real instrument panel. The complete model is divided into two sections they are Hardware and Software modules. II. THE ARCHITECTURE PROPOSED Many current digital systems are based on the use of processors (based on the von Neumann Model), which are embedded in FPGAs, jointly with several hardware parts, described through HDL languages. The term System on Chip (SoC) [4]-[5] has been widely used in automation/control system design, communications systems, among others, which involves the use or implementation of different Intellectual Properties(IPs), and a full integration on the FPGA component. The structure of SoC devices with FPGA is fully flexible and can easily respond to changes in the control system logic. The capability of modifying the logic enables to implement future additions with ease. Complex systems embedded into the FPGA (eg. DSP, Soft/Hard processors, among others) have been widely used in the industrial world.
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Jovitha Jerome is with the Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering,PSG College of Technology Coimbatore - 641 004.Email: jjovitha@yahoo.com V Ranganayaki is with the Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering,PSG College of Technology Coimbatore - 641 004.Email: ranganayaki11@gmail.com Digital Object Identifier No: IISM 00620100002

ISBN-978-1-4507-2041-0 by CiiT 2010 Published by Coimbatore Institute of Information Technology

International Conference on Intelligent Information Systems and Management (IISM2010), June10-12, 2010

The overall design is composed of Spartan 3-based FPGA and Virtual Simulator environment implemented in LABVIEW. The architecture is shown in Figure 1, where a communication system is implemented by using RS232 serial protocol. Additionally it include temperature sensor, gear position sensor, fuel level sensor and speed sensor. The analog data are acquired by FPGA through ADC.

Figure 2. Temperature Measurement

The output of the ADC is digital signal and is given to FPGA in order to find the temperature of the engine.
Figure 1. Block Diagram of Virtual Panel

III. HARDWARE A. Temperature Sensor (Thermister) A Thermister is a type of resistor used to measure temperature changes, relying on the change in its resistance with changing temperature. The relationship between resistance and temperature is linear so that it forms the firstorder approximation and is given in equation (1). R = k T Where, R = change in resistance, T = change in temperature k = first-order temperature coefficient of resistance. Thermister used is negative temperature co-efficient in which the resistance value is decreased when the temperature is increased. Thermister is connected with resister bridge network is shown in Figure 2. The bridge terminals are connected to inverting and non-inverting input terminals of comparator. The comparator is constructed by LM 324 operational amplifier. Initially the reference voltage is set to room temperature level so the output of the comparator is zero. When the temperature is increased above the room temperature level, the thermister resistance is decreased so variable voltage is given to comparator. The comparator delivered the error voltage at the output. Resistor is adjusted to get desired gain. Then output voltage is given to final stage of DC voltage follower through this the output voltage is given to ADC. (1)

B. Level Sensor (Float) Float is the one type of transducer which is used to measure the fuel level in the tank. The float changes the resistance value depending on the fuel level. This change is a resistance and is converted into corresponding voltage signal which is given to inverting input terminal of the comparator is shown in Figure 3. The reference voltage is given to non inverting input terminal. The comparator is constructed by the operational amplifier LM 741.

Figure 3. Level Measurement Using Float

The comparator compares with reference fuel level and delivered the error voltage at the output terminal. Then the error voltage is given to next stage of gain amplifier which is constructed by another operational amplifier LM 741. In the gain amplifier the variable resistor is connected in the feedback path, by adjusting the resistor to get the desired gain. Then the final voltage is given to ADC for convert the analog signal to digital signal. Then the corresponding digital signal is given to FPGA in order to find the fuel level in the tank. C. Speed Sensor (IR Sensor) Infrared transmitter [6] is one type of LED which emits infrared rays generally called as IR Transmitter. Similarly IR Receiver is used to receive the IR rays transmitted by the IR

ISBN-978-1-4507-2041-0 by CiiT 2010 Published by Coimbatore Institute of Information Technology

International Conference on Intelligent Information Systems and Management (IISM2010), June10-12, 2010

Figure 4. Speed Measurement Using IR

Figure 5. Analog to Digital Converter 0808

transmitter. One important point is both IR transmitter and receiver should be placed straight line to each other is shown in Figure 4. The transmitted signal is given to IR transmitter whenever the signal is high, the IR transmitter LED is conducting it passes the IR rays to the receiver. The IR receiver is connected with comparator. The comparator is constructed with LM 358 operational amplifier. When there is an interruption between the IR transmitter and receiver, the comparator output is in the range of +5V otherwise zero. D. Gear Position Sensor (Toggle Switch) Speed of the vehicles is changed based on the gear position. Here four gear positions are considered and also they are also monitored. Four toggle switches are used to measure the gear position. S1 1 1 1 1 S2 0 1 1 1 S3 0 0 1 1 S4 0 0 0 1 Gear Position 1st 2nd 3rd 4th

The features of ADC 0808/0809: High speed High accuracy Minimal temperature dependence Excellent long term accuracy and repeatability Consume minimal power F. DAC 0800 A digital-to-analog converter is a device for converting a digital (usually binary) code to an analog signal (current, voltage or electric charge). Digital-to-analog converters are interfaces between the abstract digital world and analog real life. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) performs the reverse operation.DAC usually only deals with pulse-code modulation (PCM)-encoded signals, typical setting times of 100ns. The output from the FPGA is given to DAC. The output of the DAC is current signal. So it is given to current to voltage converter which is constructed by the LM 741 [9] operational amplifier which is shown in Figure 6. Finally the analog voltage is given motor control circuit.

The output from the toggle switch is given to LabVIEW [7] through FPGA to indicate the correct gear position. E. ADC 0808 The ADC 0809 has one type of 8-bit ADC Figure 5 which can very easily be interfaced with any of the microprocessors. This type of converter changes the analog voltage input V in to an 8-bit digital output (D7-D0). The conversion process is initiated by a pulse applied to the ADCs START conversion terminal. The completion of conversion takes an amount of time depending upon the method of conversion time can be as large as 100ms for some ADC. During conversion the ADCs end of conversion (EOC) output goes LOW. The EOC output returns HIGH only when the conversion is completed. Here the output from the thermister and level sensor is given to ADC in which it converts analog voltage to Digital output and also sent the digital output to FPGA hardware.

Figure 6. DAC with Current to Voltage Converter

G. DC Motor Speed Control Circuit This circuit is designed to control the speed of the 12V DC motor [8] is shown in Figure 6. Here the variable resistor is used to give the different voltage signal to amplifier circuit. The amplifier circuit is constructed by the LM 741 operational amplifier. The variable voltage is given to non inverting input terminal. Then the amplified signal is given to SL 100 power transistor.
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ISBN-978-1-4507-2041-0 by CiiT 2010 Published by Coimbatore Institute of Information Technology

International Conference on Intelligent Information Systems and Management (IISM2010), June10-12, 2010 V. SERIAL COMMUNICATION INTERFACE In telecommunications, RS-232 is a standard for serial binary data interconnection between a DTE (Data terminal equipment) and a DCE (Data Circuit-terminating Equipment). It is commonly used in computer serial ports. In this circuit the MAX 232 IC used as level logic converter. FPGA transmitter pin is connected in the MAX232 T2IN pin which converts input 5v TTL/CMOS level to RS232 level. Then T2OUT pin is connected to reviver pin of 9 pin D type serial connector is directly connected to PC in which LabVIEW coding is created. Figure 9 shows the LabVIEW code to measure communication performances.
Figure 7. Speed Control Circuit of DC Motor

The 12v motor is connected in the transistor side. Depending on the amplified signal current through the transistor is controlled due to that the motor speed is controlled. H. Spartan3 FPGA (XC3S100E) Spartan3 FPGA Member family offers densities ranging from100, 000 to 1.6 million system gates. FPGAs avoid the high initial cost, the lengthy development cycles, and the inherent inflexibility of conventional ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits). Also, FPGA programmability permits design upgrades in the field with no hardware replacement necessary, an impossibility with ASICs. The FPGA coding is completed using VHDL language. The Figure 8 shows the following components and packages are written in Xilinx to implement the design. Binary to BCD is converted by Left Shift and Add 3 algorithm.

Figure 9. LabVIEW Code for RS232 Communication

VI. RESULTS The FPGA is programmed by VHDL language. It uses Spartan3 device for the hardware implementation. The simulation is done in LabVIEW environment. The serial RS 232 communication protocol is defined between the FPGA hardware and LabVIEW simulation environment. The LabVIEW program was capable to represent the reconfigurable virtual front panel of the vehicle in real time and a realistic way. This performance includes the serial communication (with the implemented protocol), the calculation and the computational cost of the system interface in the PC. The baud-rate of serial communication can be changed in both programs: FPGA hardware and the LabVIEW. The current baud rate of the serial communication is 9600 bauds. The Front panel shows temperature value, Fuel level in the tank, Gear position and Speed also. The virtual panel created which provide the rich environment for users is as shown in Figure 10. VII. CONCLUSION

Figure 8. Software Modules in FPGA

IV. THE SIMULATOR ENVIRONMENT The model of virtual instrument panel is performing all functions and tasks of the original instrument panel. LabVIEW is a general-purpose graphical programming system with extensive libraries of functions for any programming tasks. In addition, this system includes libraries for data acquisition, instrument control [10], data analysis, data presentation, and data storage. The program was designed by means of several software modules, involving the RS232 interface. The LabVIEW front panel of vehicle instrument panel is shown in Figure 7.

The following conclusions can be drawn from the executed functionality analyses for both the types of instrument panels of motor car. Currently used analogue or electronic systems can be successfully replaced by the virtual instrument panels. Functionality of the virtual systems is higher than functionality of the conventional systems. Virtual instrument panels systems are characterized by higher reliability (lack of single systems). Virtual instrument panels enable improved processing of the signals received from individual control systems and sensors and in consequence higher precision of readings.
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ISBN-978-1-4507-2041-0 by CiiT 2010 Published by Coimbatore Institute of Information Technology

International Conference on Intelligent Information Systems and Management (IISM2010), June10-12, 2010

Figure 10. LabVIEW Simulation of Virtual Panel

Virtual instrument panels enable an implementation of new functions and, in consequence, higher versatility of their use. An application of the virtual instrument panel is directly associated with rather high costs of hardware and software installation to be incurred by the user. LabVIEW also has many facilities to add with the virtual panel, and also have the facility to connect the camera for Rear view and include route map through GPS. REFERENCES
Correia A.; Llanos C. H. Q.; Carvalho R. W.; Alfaro S. A. (a), A Design/Testing Platform Based on Reconfigurable Architectures and Virtual Instrumentation Applied to the Hands-free Driving Automobile Problem. WSEAS Transactions on Systems and Control, 2007, Issue 3, vol. 2, pp. 297 304. [2] Correia A.; Llanos C. H. Q.; Carvalho R. W.; Alfaro S. A. (b), A Platform Based on Reconfigurable Architectures and Virtual Instrumentation Applied to the Driving Automobile Problem. 6th WSEAS International Conference on Signal Processing, Robotics and Automation (ISPRA '07). Greece, February 2007, pp. 1 8. [3] Marcin Buczaj, Andrzej Sumorek, Simulation Of Motor Vehicles Instrument Panel In LabVIEW , TEKA Kom. Mot. Energ. Roln. OL PAN, 2007, 7, 5158 [4] Donecker, S. M., Lasky, T. A., Ravani, B., A Mechatronic Sensing System for Vehicle Guidance and Control. IEEE-Transactions on Mechatronics, Vol.8, n.4, December 2003, pp. 500 510. [5] Yang, E., Gu, D., Mita, T., Hu, H., Nonlinear Tracking Control of A Car-Like-mobile Robot via Dynamic FeedbackLinearization. Control 2004, University of Bath, UK. [6] Tzuu-Hseng, S., Chang, S-J., Chen, Y-X., Implementation of Autonomous Fuzzy Garage-Parking Control by an FPGA-Based CarLike Mobile Robot Using Infrared Sensors. International Conference on Robotics & Automation, Taipei, Taiwan, September, 2003, pp. 3776 3781 [7] http://www.ni.com./labview. [8] Giove, D., Martinis C. D., Mauri, M.Reconfigurable Hardware Resource in Accelerator Control System. EPAC, Lucerne, Switzerland, 2004, pp. 701 703. [9] Robert F Coughlin, Frederick F Driscoll Operational Amplifiers and Linear Integrated Circuits (Book) Sixth Edition, PHI, New Delhi, 2008. [10] Tan, H.S., Guldner, J., Patwardhan, S., Chen, C., Bougler, B., 1, Development of an Automated Steering Vehicle Based on Roadway Magnets A Case Study of Mechatronic System Design. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, Vol. 4, 1999, No. 3. pp. 258 271. [1]

ISBN-978-1-4507-2041-0 by CiiT 2010 Published by Coimbatore Institute of Information Technology