Oct. 17th, 2012: “FPGA Enabled Power Electronics Systems, Past to Present” James Bonanno (slides)

Abstract: The ubiquitous DSP microcontroller is a long standing aspect of digital control for power electronics and drive systems. During the last ten years, the emergence of the FPGA as a central feature in digital controls for power electronics has emerged, and in many cases is becoming the main component in digital control architecture. The advantages of deterministic loop timing, parallel processing, flexible design tools, and relatively low cost for high density devices are real. These features make the use of FPGA technology quite attractive for many applications. Particularly as the number of topologies in the application of power electronics proliferates, FPGA’s are well suited to the performance demands. Such applications may include multi-level converters, power factor correction, and alternative energy. This talk will feature some historical perspectives on FPGA use in power electronics, with specific industrial examples, and then migrate into present state of the art. Current applications are highlighted, then some time will be spent talking about the tools and techniques for FPGA based controllers. This includes the use of higher level languages for systematic generation of HDL firmware. The talk concludes with perspectives on the future of FPGA based power electronic systems.

Bio: James has been a member of IEEE for 22 years, and belongs to the Power Electronics (PELS), Industrial Electronics (IES), and Industry Applications (IAS) societies. He serves on the System on a Chip committee for the IES. He has been working with FPGA’s for power electronics since he designed a FPGA based digital controller in 1999 for an industrial UPS application. During his time in industry, he has consulted for various industrial and aerospace such as GE Aviation, Eaton, Lord, and Moog, and several entrepreneurial ventures. Specific interests are multi-axis and high performance AC drives and power electronic converter designs featuring FPGA based controls, hardware design and packaging, and system on system software design tools.