FPGA Software Development for Control Purposes of High-Frequency Switching Power Converters

Abstract: FPGA stands for Field Programmable Gate Array and it is a technology that has been on the rise the last decades. With a decrease in size of the logic elements commercially available products have started to have more built-in functionality in one package and by being reprogrammable makes the system a powerful competitor among its neighbors. FPGA technology in comparison with Digital Signal Processing technology is generally interesting because of the parallelism of the programming that can be made. This allows for more operations in less time. In this thesis a system is developed to control power converters with control signals in high frequency. A previous project is used as a base and a toolchain of new components are implemented to create a new, more generic system. The previous system is evaluated and a new protocol for communication is developed. The toolchain with the necessary control blocks is implemented in Quartus II that includes a timer block, a pulse width modulation block, a PID controller block and a FIR-filter block. The system is used to control a power converter and the result is evaluated.