On-line arithmetic for real-time control of microsystems

Abstract

The integration of microcontrollers within mechanical systems is a current trend. However, decreasing the size of the system and satisfying higher precision requirements make it necessary to reevaluate the common signal processing techniques for controller implementations, because limited controller size, computation speed, and power consumption become major topics. In this paper, we demonstrate that serial computations with the most significant digits first, that is, on-line arithmetic, offer an important potential for real-time control. They enable a combination of traditional functions, such as analog-to-digital converters and control data computations. This leads to very efficient controller implementations with small size, high speed, and low power consumption. After a brief description of the requirements and challenges of microsystem controller design, the use of on-line arithmetic for real-time control is proposed. A short introduction to on-line arithmetic is given and control-specific implementation guidelines are presented and finally applied to a simple test system.©1999 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE