Highly configurable control boards: a tool and a design experience

The work described in this paper has two main objectives: on the one hand, the development of a software tool to handle system configuration and hardware testing and debugging tasks, and on the other hand, the development of a highly configurable family of control boards, by means of the extensive use of FPGAs and the developed software tool. The results show that the system can be used in different applications with an easy reconfiguration of the hardware parts and with a number of enhanced capabilities in the design phase and in later stages, such as production and maintenance.