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Synthesis of Distributed Controllers in Hardware/Software Background: The Matlab software environment is often used to develop control systems for engineering purposes. While this development is useful for testing purposes, often an engineer will desire to create a physical implementation of their system. Problem Statement: The process of taking a virtual control system in Matlab and turning it into a physical reality is a time consuming, but commonly used process. Normally the control system is constructed in either a VHDL or C-dependent platform. However, both of these systems have unique strengths and limitations. A control system that contains a balanced mixture of these two designs will allow for the control system to operate with greater efficiency. Therefore, in implementing a hardware/software control system, two separate tasks must be accomplished. A portion of the control system must be translated into a software equivalent in the C Programming Language. Another portion of the control system must be translated into a hardware equivalent in the VHDL description language. The C code runs onboard a desktop CPU while the VHDL is placed into an FPGA. These two systems can run simultaneously, transferring data via a PCI bus. This translation process, which normally requires a great deal of effort by hand, can be automated and will consequently reduce the time to first test and errors caused by human development. Team Members: Robin Forry, Electrical Engineer, forryrl@email.uc.edu Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ranga Vemuri Goal: The overall goal of this project is to automate the implementation of a hardware/software platform based on simple control systems developed in Matlab. Subgoals:
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