Modular Signal Processing Unit for Motion Control Applications Based on System-on-Chip with FPGA

Motion control systems with distributed architecture where multiple input/output devices are connected to the upper layer controller by fast digital communication (fieldbus) became an industrial standard. This paper presents design of a modular input/output device which can process signals from multiple sensors, drive multiple actuators and act as a Slave or Master node in EtherCAT fieldbus network. User-defined algorithms can be easily implemented to preprocess input signals, combine multiple signals or close local control loops with extremely high sampling rates which makes the difference to standard off-the-shelf solutions. To meet these requirements and simplify hardware design, our device is based on System-on-Chip with both programmable logic (FPGA) and classic processor (CPU) ARM cores. Data processing including user algorithms can be done entirely in FPGA which provides very low latency and no jitter, and also on CPU for more complex computations with advantage of tight integration between FPGA and CPU. In this paper we provide description of hardware design, system architecture and typical applications.