Technical Publications
Simulating Vector Controlled Induction Motors Using Space Vector Modulation
This paper illustrates the development of a comprehensive vector-controlled induction motor drive system. Power delivery schemes will also be implemented and analyzed, including current-regulated pulsewidth modulation (CRPWM), and space vector modulation (SVM) topologies. The SystemVision simulation tool was used for the development and simulation of all of the designs in this paper.
AUTOSAR and FlexRay: A Tale of Two Standards
The emerging automotive design software standard known as AUTOSAR (Automotive Open System Architecture) began as the product of an industry-wide effort among European auto makers and their suppliers. Its objectives are similar to those of software standards in other industries: to bring structure, clean interfaces and implicit methodologies to a process—in this case, the design of distributed systems within automobiles. FlexRay™ is a serial bus communication standard that has evolved over roughly the same time span as AUTOSAR. FlexRay came into existence as a solution for the shortcomings of the prevailing automotive bus standards, particularly the CAN protocol.
Like AUTOSAR, FlexRay counts many prominent automotive OEMs and suppliers among its advocates. Boasting much higher performance (in every respect) than other in-vehicle buses, FlexRay alone is suited for “x-by-wire” applications that must deliver absolutely predictable results for steering, braking, and so forth. What do these lofty aspirations mean to the designer who needs to get a complex array of automotive functions working together with high reliability? To the executive responsible for minimizing costs while delivering timely, compelling products to customers? To the end-users of tomorrow’s automobiles?
Mechatronic System Integration and Design
While today’s multi-discipline mechatronic systems significantly outperform legacy systems, they are also much more complex by nature—requiring close cooperation between multiple design disciplines in order to have a chance of meeting schedule requirements, and first-pass success. Mechatronic system designs must fluently integrate analog and digital hardware—along with the software that controls it—presenting daunting challenges for design teams, and requiring design processes to evolve to accommodate.
Simulation Provides Key to Explosive Automotive Design Challenges
Not only has the typical system design grown in overall size to accommodate ever-increasing demands for functionality and performance, but these designs must fluently integrate analog and digital hardware, as well as the software that controls it. Successfully integrating and verifying that system components work in concert with each other often proves to be costly in terms of time, money and engineering resources. And, at the same time, there is increased pressure to reduce development cycle time. In order to keep pace with these new realities, new processes and development tools are required. In particular, the development and intelligent use of computer models of these complex systems—once considered a luxury—are becoming critical to the success of the overall development process.
FPGA Design and Verification in Mechatronic Applications
The biggest challenge in using FPGA devices may be one of methodology. FPGA designers are familiar with HDL-based requirements-driven design methodologies for digital electronics. But how can requirements be expressed for a system that, while it contains digital elements, is fundamentally non-digital? Fortunately an executable HDL exists that extends the capabilities of the digital VHDL language. VHDL-AMS language is an undiscovered asset for FPGA designers - a powerful tool to define and verify requirements in a non-digital context.
Reducing Development Program Risk
This paper describes how incorporating a model-driven development process into the development life cycle lays the groundwork for an integrated design flow. This process helps address systems integration issues faced by aerospace contractors and subcontractors today.
Model-driven development provides a structure for managing complexity while, at each design stage, making it possible to directly link design functionality back to a development program's original requirements and functional specifications. A virtual prototyping infrastructure, in which models from different domains can be integrated at each stage of the development life cycle, allows system integration issues to be identified and addressed earlier in the program. This not only helps reduce overall program time and cost, but makes these easier to predict, reducing program risk.
Modeling a Digitally Controlled Power Supply
Power supply designs are going digital. It is now common to see what would have once been a completely analog design incorporate some combination of Digital Signal Processing (DSP), microcontroller (uC), and/or Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technologies. This paper illustrates how the SystemVision simulation environment can be used to design and analyze this class of power supply on a 150 W, 100 KHz half-bridge converter.
How to Model Power Systems Using SystemVision
This booklet introduces practical guidelines and specific techniques for developing and analyzing complex power systems with the aid of computer simulation. The general concept of computer simulation (referred to simply as simulation in this booklet) is to use a computer to predict the behavior of a system that is to be developed. To achieve this goal, a system model of the real system is created. This system model is then used to predict actual system performance and to help make effective design decisions.
CAN Bus Signal Integrity Design
VHDL-AMS (IEEE Standard 1076.1) provides hardware modeling capabilities that are well suited for CAN signal integrity analysis. This includes modeling the analog, digital and mixed-signal aspects of the transceivers, as well as the behavior of twisted-pair transmission lines, connectors and other components of the CAN Physical Layer. SystemVision supports both VHDL-AMS as well as traditional Spice modeling methods. This paper presents various modeling approaches applicable to the key hardware components of a CAN bus. It also provides examples of simulation-based techniques for CAN signal integrity design.
Object Action Language Reference Manual
The purpose of this manual is to serve as a reference and general user?s guide to aid in the correct specification of action semantics for UML models. Although originally designed for models used with the BridgePoint UML Suite, the language described can be used to define the action semantics for any UML model in any tool.
The Object Action Language is written to satisfy the following goals:
- Readability - Modelers must be able to easily understand the OAL for development and reviews
- Derivation - Event generation and data access information is captured for derivation of the Object Collaboration Diagrams and Package Dependency Diagrams for both asynchronous (event) and synchronous (data access) communication
- Simulation - The UML models can be simulated through interpretation of the actions
- Translation - Richness of expression is provided while maintaining a specification that can be automatically translated on a target architecture
DO-254 Compliant Design and Verification with VHDL-AMS
The functionality and performance of modern military and aerospace systems has become heavily influenced by their electronic content. Consequently, selecting the right electronic components and choosing the optimal design methodology is vital in developing a successful product. The flexibility and capabilities of new digital components is still growing exponentially. The potential of these devices, however, cannot be fully (and safely) utilized without incorporating the latest design and verification methodologies. Design methodologies for mil-aero applications must consider the complexities of mechatronic systems. The VHDL-AMS language is an undiscovered asset for mil-aero digital designers - a powerful tool to define and verify safety-critical requirements in a non-digital context. This paper discusses the use of VHDL-AMS for safety-critical digital systems.
Lit Number: TECH7810-w