Journal of The Institution of Engineers, Singapore

Vol. 45 Issue 5 2005

FPGA BASED FUZZY LOGIC CONTROLLER FOR

ELECTRIC VEHICLE
S.Poorani1, T.V.S.Urmila Priya2, K.Udaya Kumar3 and S.Renganarayanan4

ABSTRACT
Direct Current motors, specifically the shunt motors are popular these days for electric
vehicles. The speed of the motor has to be controlled, which in turn controls the vehicle
dynamics to run the vehicle. So, the main aim is to determine the motor speed, which
drives the vehicle. In this regard, parameters such as acceleration, braking, energy status,
gear and terrain are considered. This system, which function as a closed loop system,
also takes the motor speed as a reference along with the above-mentioned parameters to
estimate the variation of the motor speed. This paper, advocates a novel approach to
implement the fuzzy logic controller for speed control of electric vehicle by using FPGA.

INTRODUCTION
Fuzzy Logic has been successfully applied to a large number of control applications. The
most commonly used controller is the proportional-plus-integral-plus-derivative (PID)
controller, which requires a mathematical model of the system. Fuzzy logic controller
provides an alternative to PID controller since it is a good tool for the control of systems
that are difficult in modeling. The control action in fuzzy logic controllers can be
expressed with simple “if-then” rules.

Hardware implementation of the controller can be achieved in a number of ways to create

new products. The most popular method of implementing fuzzy controller is using a
general-purpose microprocessor or microcontroller. Generally, an 8-bit microprocessor
can handle most of the necessary computations. Microprocessor based controllers are
more economical and flexible, but often face difficulties in dealing with control systems
that require high processing and input/output handling speeds. Rapid advances in digital
technologies have given designers the option of implementing a controller on a variety of
Programmable Logic Device (PLD), Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), etc. One
of the hardware solutions is the ASIC, which is used in situations where high-speed
operation is required, and is faster than general-purpose microprocessors. The
disadvantage of ASIC is that no change can be made once the chip is created. Another
hardware solution is the use of an FPGA, which is suitable for fast implementation and

1
Ph.D scholar in Dept of EEE, Anna University, India, poorani_s@yahoo.com, IEEE & SAE
Student member
2
M.E student in Dept of EEE, Anna Unversity, India
3
Prof in Dept of EEE, Anna University, India
4
Prof in Dept of Mechanical, Anna University, India

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quick hardware verification. FPGA based systems are flexible and can be reprogrammed
unlimited number of times.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SYSTEM AND CONTROLLER

The major components of an electric vehicle system are the motor, controller, power
source, charger for electric vehicle although other promising battery technologies are
emerging in the horizon.

Figure 1: Block Diagram of Electric Vehicle

The controller is needed for controlling the parameters of the vehicle, taking into
consideration the overall performance of the vehicle. A DC shunt motor is used, in which
the field windings and the armature may be connected in parallel across a constant
voltage supply. In adjustable speed application as it is used in electric vehicle the field is
connected across an independent adjustable voltage supply. Since the motor is of primary
importance to the electric vehicle system, the determination of the speed of the motor for
the various terrains is considered here. Section 2 briefly introduces the concepts of FPGA
and HDL. Section 3 discusses the strategy to implement the FPGA based fuzzy controller
for electric vehicle and gives detailed description on the interfacing of hardware
components used. Section 4 gives the results obtained from the controller. Section 5
discusses the conclusion.

FIELD PROGRAMMABLE GATE ARRAY (FPGA)

A Field Programmable Gate Array is a digital integrated circuit that can be programmed
to do any type of digital function. There are two main advantages of an FPGA over a
microprocessor chip for controller:

1) An FPGA has the ability to operate faster than a microprocessor chip.

2) The new FPGAs that are on the market will support hardware that is upwards of
one million gates.

FPGAs are programmed using support software and a download cable connected to a
host computer. Once they are programmed, they can be disconnected from the computer
and will retain their functionality until the power is removed from the chip. The FPGAs
can be programmed while they run, because they can be reprogrammable in the order of

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Vol. 45 Issue 5 2005

microseconds. This short time means that the system will not even sense that the chip was
reprogrammed and there may be a small waiting period, but the system will not have to
be shut down.

The FPGA consists of three major configurable elements:

1) Configurable Logic Blocks (CLBs) arranged in an array that provides the

functional elements and implements most of the logic in an FPGA.

2) Input-output blocks (IOBs) that provide the interface between the package pins
and internal signal lines.

3) Programmable interconnect resources that provide routing path to connect inputs

and outputs of CLBs and IOBs onto the appropriate network.

HARDWARE DESCRIPTION LANGUAGES (HDL)

HDL describes how hardware behaves. There are two main differences between
traditional programming languages and HDL:

1) Tradtional languages are a sequential process whereas HDL is a parallel process.

2) HDL runs forever whereas traditional programming languages will only run if
directed.

A digital design can be created using schematic digital design editor that uses graphic
symbols of the circuit or by using hardware description languages such as Verilog, Very
High Speed Integrated Circuit hardware description language (VHDL). One of the key
features of using VHDL is that it can be used to achieve all the goals for documentation,
simulation, verification and synthesis of digital designs, thus saving a lot of effort and
time. VHDL can be used to model a digital system at many levels of abstraction, ranging
from the algorithmic level to the gate level. The VHDL language can be regarded as an
integrated amalgamation of the following factors, such as, Sequential language +
Concurrent language + Net-list language + timing-specifications + waveform generation
language => VHDL. Therefore, the language has constructs that enable one to express the
concurrent or sequential behaviour of a digital system with or without timing. In this
paper, the implementation of the controller on a FPGA using VHDL is presented.

IMPLEMENTATION OF FPGA CONTROLLER

The design of the controller consists of an FPGA, analog-to-digital converter & toggle
switches for the inputs, motor and LCD for the input. A block diagram for the controller
is shown in figure 2.

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Figure 2: Block Diagram of the controller with FPGA

HARDWARE FEATURES
The hardware consists of one 20 character by 4 line LCD screen, potentiometers for
acceleration and braking, battery, ADC 0808, motor, IR sensor, PWM driver circuit and
five toggle switches. Figure 3 shows the hardware interface for the design. To get the
acceleration data, a 47K potentiometer is used. Likewise, another potentiometer is used to
get the brake data. A lead acid battery of 12V 7.5 AH is used to give the power supply to
the whole module. A voltage regulator circuit is used to provide the 5V that is needed
from the 12V available to other components in the circuit. The voltage for the motor
(12V) is taken directly from the battery and a voltage regulator circuit is used to step
down the 12V to 5V in order to drive the Xilinx, ADC and LCD components.

The ADC 0808 is an 8-channel, 8-bit analog to digital converter from National
Semiconductor. Its operating voltage is 5V DC with 100µs conversion times. A 12V DC
motor of 2400 rpm is used. In total five toggle switches are used; three switches are used
for the gear selection. Among the eight combinations, 000 represents neutral, 001 is for
1st, 010 is for 2nd, 011 is for 3rd, 110 is for 4th, 101 is for reverse gear and the other left out
combinations remain unused. Another two switches are for terrain (00-smooth, 01-rough,
10-uphill, and 11-downhill) selection. The speed of the motor will differ for each terrain
based on the other inputs. A separate battery charger circuit is designed using bridge
rectifier and LM317 voltage regulator for the offline battery charging. A power supply
circuit is designed using LM7805 voltage regulator to convert the 12V to 5V in order to
drive the Xilinx, ADC and LCD components.

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Figure 3: Hardware Interface

DATA ACQUISITION UNIT

The data acquisition unit drives the ADC 0808 to get the crisp inputs (acceleration,
braking & state of charge). The analog inputs are taken from potentiometers of from the
battery. The analog values have to be converted into digital values before being given to
the FPGA. Therefore, analog to digital converter (ADC 0808) chip is used. The ADC
0808 chip allows monitoring up to 8 different transducers using only one chip. Here, only
three channels are used to get the acceleration, braking and state of charge of the battery.
The 8 analog inputs channels are multiplexed and selected using the address pins A, B
and C. The A, B and C address to select IN0 – IN7 and activate ALE (Address Latch
Enable) to latch in the address. START is for start of conversion. EOC is for End of
Conversion and OE is for Output Enable (READ).

The following steps are to be carried out for data conversion by the ADC 0808 chip:

1) Select an analog channel by providing bits to A, B and C addresses (000 -

acceleration, 001 – braking and 010 – for battery).

2) Activate the ALE (Address Latch Enable) pin. It needs an L to H pulse to latch in
the address.

3) Activate START by an H to L pulse to initiate conversion.

4) Check the EOC to see whether conversion is finished. H to L output indicates that
the data is converted and is ready to be read.

5) An H to L pulse to the OE pin will read 8 bit data out.

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All the above steps have to be carried out at the 8 KHz clock frequency. Therefore, a
VHDL clock divider module is written to generate the 8 KHz clock for the data
conversion since the conversion time is approximately 100µs. Figure 4 shows the signals,
which are involved in the conversion of analog data to digital. Here, channel IN0 is used
for the acceleration input, channel IN1 is used for braking, channel IN2 is used for the
battery input and the remaining channels are left unused. Therefore, the multiplexing is
done only for the first three channels.

Figure 4: Interfacing of ADC 0808 with FPGA

The generation of the control signals and addresses for the channel selection at the
appropriate moments and reading the 8-bit digital data are coded in VHDL using the
finite state machine. The Mealy type state machine is used. In this type of state machine,
the outputs not only depend on the state of the machine but also on its inputs. This type of
machine can be modeled by using two processes in VHDL coding, one process that
models the synchronous aspect of the finite state machine and one that models the
combination part.

IMPLEMENTATION OF FUZZY CONTROLLER

The components of the fuzzy controller for the DC motor are implemented in VHDL [6].
The specifications for the implementation of the FLC are; number of input variables = 6,
number of output variable = 1, number of bits required to represent the input variables =

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8, number of fuzzy sets for the variables vary from 3 to 6 and all the variables use to non
overlapping rectangular membership functions. The input parameters are 1) Speed 2)
Acceleration 3) Braking 4) State of charge of battery 5) Gear and 6) Terrain. The output
of the fuzzy system is the duty cycle of the PWM signal. In this controller design, the
speed is taken in the range of 00-FF. The range is divided into three linguistic variables
namely short, medium and high. The Gear is taken in the range of 0-6. The range is
divided into five linguistic variables namely Neutral, 1st gear, 2nd gear, 3rd gear, 4th gear
and Reverse. The State of charge of the battery is taken in the range of 00-FF. The range
is divided into three linguistic variables namely low, normal and high. The Terrain is
taken in the range of 1-4. The range is divided into four linguistic variables namely
Smooth, Rough, Uphill and Downhill. The output parameter duty cycle of the pwm signal
is taken in the range of 00-64. The range is divided into four linguistic variables namely
very low, low, medium and high.

Figure 5: Block Diagram of the fuzzy control scheme for DC motor

The implementation process is subdivided into three components namely fuzzifier, rule
base and defuzzifier. The complete structures of the fuzzy controller with other blocks are
shown in figure 5. the function of the fuzzifier is to transform crisp inputs into fuzzy
inputs. Crisp inputs for the accelerator, brake and battery are 8-bit binary value
representing the current reading, 3-bit binary value for gear, 2-bit binary value for gear
and stream of pulses for speed. The first step is to convert the crisp inputs to fuzzy inputs;
for those, compare the crisp inputs with the membership function parameters of variables
respectively.

Rule evaluation is the second step of the fuzzy logic process, and determines what control
action should occur in response to a given set of input values. A rule base for this system
is created as shown in table 1, 2, 3, 4. Totally, there are 70 rules written for this design.
Sample lists of rules are shown in the matrix format. The rule evaluation method used is
“min-max” inferences, since it takes the minimum of the antecedents to determine rule
strength and the maximum of the rule strengths for each consequent to determine fuzzy
outputs.

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When Terrain – Sm, Gear – 4,

Table 1: Rule base for smooth terrain

Speed/soc H N L
F H H M
M H M L
S M M L
VS L L VL

When Terrain – R, Gear – 4,

Table 2: Rule base for rough terrain

Speed/soc H N L
F H M L
M M M L
S L L L
VS VL VL VL

When terrain – U, Gear – 4,

Table 3: Rule base for uphill terrain

Speed/soc H N L
F M L L
M M L L
S L L VL
VS VL VL VL

When Terrain – D, Gear – 4,

Table 4: Rule base for downhill terrain

Speed/soc H N L
F M L L
M L L VL
S L L VL
VS VL VL VL

Defuzzification is the last step in fuzzy logic process, which transforms the fuzzy outputs
to crisp output based on the output membership function. In defuzzification, all
significant outputs will be combined into a specific, comprehensive result to get crisp
output. One of the most common defuzzification techniques called center of gravity or
centroid method is used here.

PWM DRIVER UNIT

In this unit, the output from the fuzzy controller to the motor is considered. The input to
the motor can be given in terms of the pulse width modulation signal. Since this system

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has been designed as closed-loop, the feedback from the motor has to be taken. A
feedback device’s basic function is to transform a physical parameter into an electrical
signal for use by a motion controller. Common feedback devices are encoders for
position feedback, tachometers for velocity feedback, and accelerometers for acceleration
feedback. Among the above-mentioned ways to measure the speed of the motor, the
optical encoder technique is used here. The crisp output from the defuzzifier is given to
the pulse width generator to generate the PWM signal to drive the motor. The motor is
connected to the FPGA through the driver circuit as shown in figure 6. Actually, this
PWM signal is given as a gate signal to the Mosfet in the drive unit, which in turn drives
the motor, depending upon the duty cycle of the signal.

Figure 6: Chopper and optical encoder circuit

A totem pole transistor is used before the Mosfet to decide whether the Mosfet is to be
turned on or off. Also, the direction of rotation (i.e.) clockwise or anticlockwise direction
is decided by the control signal, which is generated by the FPGA. When the gear is
chosen to be reverse, then the control signal is set to 0 to make the motor rotate in the
anticlockwise direction. Otherwise, this control signal is set to 1 for all other gears to
make the motor rotate in clockwise direction. For achieving this operation, a relay coil
with DPDT switch is used. For 100% duty cycle, the motor runs at its maximum speed
and for 10%, it runs at its lowest speed.

The PWM signal is generated with reference to the external clock signal. Since the motor
is running at a speed of 100 Hz, the PWM signal is generated at this frequency. The on

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and off period of the PWM signal is varied with reference to the generated clock
frequency. These feedback signals from the motor that are generated are then fed into the
controller where pulses are counted based on the signals received and the speed is
determined internally to decide the speed for the successive moments for the motor.

DISPLAY UNIT
The function of the display unit is to display the terrain type, gear chosen, accelerator
status, braking status, battery charge status and speed of the motor in Liquid Crystal
Display (LCD). In order to display any information in LCD, first it has to be first
initialized and then the data is sent. The one factor to be considered here is sending the
information to LCD in terms of ASCII. So the LCD module has to change the decimal
value to ASCII or std_logic_vector to ASCII respectively. Three control signals such as
Enable, Register Select and Read/Write are generated from the FPGA and given to LCD.
And, ASCII values are passed to LCD through 8-bit data lines. Figure 7 shows the
interfacing of LCD with FPGA.

Figure 7: Interfacing LCD with FPGA

Here, 20 * 4 LCD display is used. To display any information in any row, the appropriate
row address has to be selected and the cursor has to be removed there. The cursor address
for this LCD is given below.

80 81 82 ………. 93 ---- 1st row

C0 C1 C2 ………D3 ---- 2nd row
94 95 96 ………..A7 ---- 3rd row
D4 D5 D6 ………E7 ---- 4th row

To initialize the LCD, the following steps have to be carried out for the initialization
process, waiting for required period of time after the execution of each step.

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1) Send 38h to LCD for function set

2) Send 0Eh for display on and cursor on

3) Send 01h for clear display

4) Send 1Ch for shift the entire display to the right

5) Send 02h for return home

Then, send the row address to LCD and the information to display. The required clock for
this module is generated internally with reference to the external clock.

OBSERVATION FROM THE CONTROLLER

All the modules are integrated and synthesized using Xilinx project navigator and support
tools. The synthesized VHDL source code is placed and routed. Finally, a bit file is
created. This bit file is programmed into the Xilinx XC2S300E-6PQ208 FPGA and
interfaced with the input and output devices. Table 5 shows the synthesis report of the
controller. The motor has been tested for various terrain and various gears conditions.

Here, initially, the system is in neutral gear, smooth terrain type, with the available
battery status, no acceleration and braking. To start the system, choose 1st gear and the
motor runs at the minimum speed. Then proceed by changing the gear for increasing the
speed. The vehicle can switch over from one terrain to another terrain by setting the
terrain thumb wheel switch position appropriately. Similarly moving the switch position
also carries out gear switching. The module has been checked for various input
conditions. Some of the cases are listed below.

Table 5: Synthesis report of the controller

Device Specification of the Used by this design
Xilinx XC2S300E FPGA
Number of CLBs used 1536 757
Number 4 input LUTs 6144 2648
Number of IOBs 142 39
Number of gates used for 300000 24585
design

When Terrain is Sm, SOC is H, AA – nil, BR – nil, gear is 4th and speed is F then the
output duty cycle is 100% and PWM signal generated for this output is given to the motor.
The feedback from the motor is measured through CRO as shown in figure 8. From the
figure, it is inferred that it took 28ms to complete one revolution. Now in this condition,
the motor is running at the speed of 2127rpm.

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Figure 8: Pulses from the motor for 100% duty cycle input

When the input parameters Terrain is R, SOC is H, AA – M, BR – nil, gear is 3rd and
speed is M then the output duty cycle is 65% and PWM signal generated for this output is
given to the motor. The feedback from the motor is measured through CRO as shown in
figure 9. From the figure, it is inferred that it took 41.4ms to complete one revolution.
Now in this condition, the motor is running at the speed of 1450rpm.

By using this controller, the motor has been controlled to go at the maximum speed of
2127rpm for smooth terrain, 1725rpm for rough terrain, 1345rpm for uphill terrain and
1161rpm for downhill terrain.

Figure 9: Pulses from the motor for 65% duty cycle input

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

The real time implementation of the fuzzy logic controller for the various driving
conditions and terrains has been achieved on a Xinlinx Spartan 2E FPGA using VHDL.
This controller has been implemented for four different types of terrains. The
implementation of this controller for the fuzzy module along with other blocks such as
ADC and LCD in the closed-loop control system of a DC motor is performed. Further
progress in the controller is, in the development of controller for battery monitoring that
could alarm the state of charge (SOC) and time of recharge.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author likes to thank college of engineering, Anna University, for providing the
fellowship, and the members of the staff, colleagues and parents for their motivation in
successfully bringing out this paper.

REFERENCES
Lee C.C. “Fuzzy logic in control system: Fuzzy logic controller – part I and part II”,
IEEE transactions on systems, man and cybernetics, vol. 20, No. 2, pp 404 – 435, 1991.

Mahmoud A. Manzoul and D. Jayabharathi, “FPGA for fuzzy controllers”, IEEE

transactions on systems, man and cybernetics, vol. 25, No. 1, January 1995.

Ying-Yu Tzou and Hau-Jean Hsu, “FPGA realization of Space-Vector PWM control IC
for three-phase pwm inverters”, IEEE transactions on power electronics, Vol. 12, No. 6,
Novemeber 1997.

Daniel Carrica, Macros A. Funes, and Sergio A. Gonzalez, “Novel stepper motor
controller based on FPGA Hardware Implementation”, IEEE/ASME transactions on
mechatronics, Vol. 8, No. 1, March 2003.

Niels J. Schouten, Mutasim A. Salman, and Naim A. Kheir, “Fuzzy Logic control for
parallel Hybrid Vehicles”, IEEE transactions on Control Systems Technology, Vol. 10,
No. 3, May 2002.

J.Bhasker, “VHDL Primer”, Addison Wesley Longman Singapore Pte Ltd, Third
edition.

Michael John Sebastian Smith, “Application-Specific Integrated Circuits”, Pearson

education inc, 2003.

Muhammad Ali Mazidi and Janice Gillispie Mazidi, “The 8051 Mircocontroller and
embedded systems”, Pearson eduction inc.

Xilinx Inc, Xilinx Software manuals online, support.Xilinx.com

APPENDIX
List of Abbreviations Used:
VL – Very Low
L – Low
M – Medium
H – High
Sm – Smooth
R – Rough

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U – Uphill
D – Down hill
N – Normal
F – Fast
S – Slow
VS – Very Slow
Ne – Neutral
Re – Reverse
AA – Acceleration
BR – Braking
SOC – State of Charge
Hz – Hertz
ms – milli seconds
rpm – revolution per minute
Freq – Frequency
DRDT – Double pole Double Throw
CRO – Cathode Ray Oscilloscope

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