The Application of Reconfigurable Logic to Active Magnetic Bearing Controller

The article presents the main problems of implementing the PID control law in the reconfigurable logic, namely FPGA integrated circuit. The consecutive steps of discretizing and choosing the fixed-point representation of the continuous, floating-point PID algorithm are described. The FPGA controller is going to be used in the active hetero-polar magnetic bearings system consisting of two radial and one axial bearings. The results of the experimental investigations of the controller are presented. The dynamic performance of the controller is better when compared with the dSPACE controller, that was used so far. The designed hardware and software, the developed implementation procedure and the experience acquired during this stage of the whole project are going to be used during the implementation of more sophisticated control laws (e.g. H_∞ robust) in the FPGA for AMB controllers.