Heterogeneous Control Platform Design for Power Conversion Systems

Digitally controlled switch-mode power conversion systems require an embedded computing platform to execute, in real-time (RT), closed-loop algorithms that regulate the power flow. Since legacy control software design is traditionally rooted to single-core processors, recent trends in power electronics toward faster switching devices and multilevel topologies will challenge their computational capacity and reliability to meet RT deadlines. With Internet-of-Things driving down the cost of a general-purpose system-on-chip (SoC), combining a multicore application processor and a field-gate programmable array (FPGA) on single device, this article introduces a codesign workflow and a runtime architecture for the heterogeneous deployment of multirate control algorithms. Code migration toward the FPGA exploits high-level synthesis, while a Linux-Xenomai dual-kernel operating system manages the synchronization and the parallel execution of the tasks. Following sections will describe and benchmark the selected key technologies and validate them on a small-scale grid-connected converter emulator.