This RIO architecture is now deployed
in many systems, such as those from
EUROelectronics, Srl. The architecture
helped EUROelectronics advance from the
prototyping phase to the final machine
setup in only three months (Figure 1).
Reduced Machine Design Time
U.S. Department of Energy data informs
machine builders that switching to a
motor with a 4 to 6 percent higher efficiency
rating can pay for itself in just two
years if that motor is in operation for
more than 4,000 hours a year.
Unfortunately, many machines host
motors that are very large and too costly
to replace. So in these cases, the key to
reaping savings lies in updated drive-control
algorithms and controller hardware.
A second challenge is the integrated
control complexities required for brushless
DC and permanent-magnet synchronous
AC motors (PMSM), both
commonly grouped together as brushless
DC motors (BLDC). Many machine
builders lack the software or hardware
design expertise required to build an
embedded controller that can execute
real-time closed-loop control on a wide
variety of analog and digital sensor types.
LED/DIP
Disk on Chip
DDR SDRAM
LED/DIP
Fuse
PCI/
LocalBus
Memory
To reduce time to final design for
embedded-machine builders, we incorporated
one form of our RIO-based architecture
into a product called CompactRIO.
These FPGA-based configurations include
systems built from Xilinx Virtex ® -5 LX85
to Spartan ® -3 and Virtex-II 1M-gate-based
UART Ethernet Phy
Power Supply
Interface
UART Ethernet MAC
GPIO 12C
RTC
Battery
PCI/LocalBus
XCELLENCE IN AUTOMOTIVE & ISM
Figure 1 – Embedded-machine builder EUROelectronics
reduced power use with FPGA-based field-oriented control.
backplanes, combined with PowerPC ®
603e-based processors in various performance
frequencies (Figure 2).
We built into our RIO framework configuration
software utilities and dynamic
I/O reconfiguration capabilities that save
time in setup and reuse for both the end-
Third Quarter 2009 Xcell Journal 27
DMA
ASIC
Configuration Flash
5V Tolerant
DIO
110 DIO
Processor FPGA
DIO
Onboard ADC,
DAC, 24V DIO
Figure 2 – Modular RIO architecture-based framework for NI’s single-board RIO and CompactRIO configurations
DIO
NI C Series I/O
Custom I/O
Custom I/O
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