Proposal of a Control Hardware Architecture for Implementation of Fractional-Order Controllers

The objective of this paper is to present a proposal for a new control hardware architecture that supports the practical implementation of integer- and fractional-order controllers. This control hardware architecture exhibits various significant features: From the hardware point of view, the proposed architecture offers the possibility of using different conventional control technologies, namely, computer control, real-time microcontroller-based control, and FPGA-based control. From the software point of view, LabVIEW is used as the unique programming language, regardless of the selected control technology. Some examples are presented in which fractional-order controllers are implemented using different control technologies in order to demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed control hardware architecture for this purpose. Some hardware implementation issues are also discussed in this context. Finally, some final remarks and conclusions are provided.