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Femtocore: An Application Specific Processor for Vertically Integrated High Performance Real-Time Controls

Savi, Filippo; Harikumaran, Jayakrishnan; Barater, Davide; Buticchi, Giampaolo; Gerada, Chris; Wheeler, Pat

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Authors

Filippo Savi

Jayakrishnan Harikumaran

Davide Barater

Giampaolo Buticchi

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PATRICK WHEELER pat.wheeler@nottingham.ac.uk
Professor of Power Electronic Systems



Abstract

In applications that require a high availability and high performance (for example aerospace),modular power electronics and multi-phase machines represent an advantageous choice. In this framework, a control system able to handle a high number of PWM signals and communication interfaces as well as featuring a high computational power is required. This paper proposes a novel HDL plus soft-core approach to be implemented on System-on-Chip hardware which allows for the efficient and modular implementation of the modern control techniques with strong guarantees in terms of determinism. The proposal lies in the adoption of a very simplified and optimized floating-point soft-core, the femtocore (fCore) and its tool-chain, which allows C-like implementation of complex algorithms in a HDL-design power electronics control framework. Several fCore units can be arranged for parallel processing to handle the time requirements of a complex modular system even with low sampling time (100 kHz or more). The proposed architecture is experimentally validated in a proof-of-concept, six-phase electric machine including a comparison against a traditional method.

Citation

Savi, F., Harikumaran, J., Barater, D., Buticchi, G., Gerada, C., & Wheeler, P. (2021). Femtocore: An Application Specific Processor for Vertically Integrated High Performance Real-Time Controls. IEEE Open Journal of the Industrial Electronics Society, 2, 479-488. https://doi.org/10.1109/OJIES.2021.3112124

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 9, 2021
Online Publication Date Sep 14, 2021
Publication Date Sep 14, 2021
Deposit Date May 13, 2022
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal IEEE Open Journal of the Industrial Electronics Society
Print ISSN 2644-1284
Electronic ISSN 2644-1284
Publisher Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 2
Pages 479-488
DOI https://doi.org/10.1109/OJIES.2021.3112124
Keywords Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law; Geography, Planning and Development
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/7352896
Publisher URL https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9537621

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