Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

Today, control algorithms are being more and more sophisticated due to the customer and governments demands for lower cost, greater reliability, greater accuracy and environment requirements (power consumption, emitted radiation, ...). Then, real-time implementation of these algorithms becomes a difficult task and needs more and more specific hardware systems with dedicated processors and usually systems-on-chip (SOCs).

With the ever-increasing complexity and time-to-market pressures in the design of these specific control systems, a well design methodology is more than even necessary.

In this report we describe the application of the SpecC system-level design methodology (developed at the CAD Lab, UC Irvine) to the design of control systems for power electronics and electric drives. We first begin with an executable specification model in SpecC and then discuss the refinement of this model into architecture model, which accurately reflects the system architecture. At this stage, we discuss different solutions according to the application complexity and constraints. Based on the studied architecture models, communication protocols between the system components are defined and communication models are developed.

In this report, we discuss the case of a DC system Control and describe in details different stages undergone. Generalization to others systems can be done easily using the same steps and transformations.