Industrial Automation branch INA
of Fraunhofer IOSB
Industrial Automation branch INA
of Fraunhofer IOSB

Hardware-Design

Embedded systems are a critical component in industry and provide a cost-effective solution for implementing real-time applications. They are used in machine controls, sensors, actuators and other components to make production processes more efficient and safer. As the basis of embedded systems, so-called FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) offer the advantage that their programmable logic devices can be used to flexibly and cost-effectively implement prototype solutions or small series for the implementation of digital circuits, signal processing, communication, control and other applications.

FPGA-Board für eine Echtzeitapplikation

Our service offer:

  • Consultations on hardware designs and programmable logic (FPGA technology incl. embedded CPUs)
  • Architecture design and specifications
  • Implementation in the area of embedded systems (hardware, FPGA and software development) incl. support of FPGA and ASIC development projects in the industry
  • Implementation of FPGA special applications such as multi-gigabit communication
  • Test of embedded systems (HIL, verification by simulation)

Core benefits:

  • Depending on the application, higher performance and speed than software-based solutions
  • Rapid development of digital architectures and circuits
  • Possibility for real-time processing, high computing power and reliability or deterministic time behavior of the application
  • Performance enhancement and optimization of embedded systems
  • Fast performance test execution

Equipment:

  • FPGA tool chains of the manufacturers Intel (Altera) and AMD (Xilinx)
  • Various FPGA boards, such as Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale +
  • High-Speed Oscilloscopes
  • Modelsim simulation environment with licenses

References / Publications:

  • Flatt, Holger; Heilmann, Gernod; Bunge, Frank; Westerkamp, Jan: Ultra-Hochgeschwindigkeitskommunikation - Neues Systemkonzept zur Regelung dezentraler Netzeinspeiseumrichter. In: ew-Magazin 09/2023, VDE Verlag GmbH, S. 34-37, Sep 2023.
  • Flatt, Holger: Science to Business am Beispiel Elektronikentwicklung mit FPGAs zur Ultrahochgeschwindigkeitsregelung von Netzeinspeiseumrichtern für Windenergieanlagen (Lecture). In: CIIT Tech-Talk, Dezember 2023
    (Link to recording)
  • Flatt, Holger; Schriegel, Sebastian; Jan Westerkamp; Ingo Mackensen; Albrecht Gensior; Jasperneite, Jürgen: Ethernet-basierte Ultra-Hochgeschwindigkeitskommunikation für eine Regelung dezentraler Einspeiseumrichter von Windenergieanlagen. In: Kommunikation in der Automation (KommA 2021), Magdeburg, Nov 2021
  • FPGA-based TSN monitor
  • FPGA-based redundant and time-synchronous Ethernet based on HSR, PRP and IEEE 1588 protocols
  • FPGA-based real-time Ethernet switch based on PROFINET and IEEE 1588 protocols
  • PROFINET ASIC TPS-1