FPGAs used in industrial control and instrumentation systems

Technology opportunities in the field of digital electronics have undergone a significant evolution over the last few years, creating many innovative openings for the implementation of increasingly complex control systems for industrial applications. DSP-based solutions are traditionally used for the implementation of digital control laws. However, hardware or combined (software/hardware) solutions implemented in FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) have recently received particular attention, mainly because of their ability to allow designers to build efficient dedicated hardware architectures by means of flexible software. Therefore, FPGAs can now be considered as an appropriate solution to boost the performance of industrial controllers and instrumentation systems, by enabling the implementation of new control and data acquisition methods and/or by designing concurrent architectures.