Configurable Description of FPGA-based Control System for Sensor Processing

In this paper, we introduce a novel approach for the description organization of the sensor processing system based on Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The proposed approach to the description organization is highly configurable for the case when multiple sensors of the same type are to be connected to the processing module. The description scheme takes the advantage of user-defined types and generic parametrization of the types to declare general structures. These structures are further extended according to the system requirements for quantity of sensors. In opposite to the straightforward approach to the description that supposes addition or removal of the instances alongside with all supplementary connections from description, changes of the system structure are maintained by configuring only two parameters. The proposed organization of hardware description reduces line-of-codes parameter. The implementation of the proposed description scheme has been performed using VHDL description language. However, the approach is applicable for other common hardware description languages as well. Moreover, the description is vendor-independent and underpins only on the general features of the language that makes it portable for circuits from different producers of FPGA.