FPGAs in industrial control applications

The aim of this paper is to review the state of the art of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technologies and their contribution in industrial control applications. Authors start by addressing various research fields where FPGAs are useful. The features of these devices are then presented followed by their corresponding design tools. To illustrate the benefit of using FPGAs in the case of complex control applications, a sensorless motor controller has been treated. This controller is based on the Extended Kalman Filter. Its development has been made according to a dedicated design methodology which is also discussed. Another example of illustration is the Neural Network Systems. To show the interest of FPGAs in this field, some case studies have been presented.