Development scheme of SoPC-based reconfigurable controllers

By utilizing the SoPC (System on a Programmable Chip) technology and the emerging software technology-Web Services, this research proposes a novel development scheme of SoPC-based reconfigurable controllers. Via this scheme, users can rapidly develop a variety of reconfigurable industrial controllers. The hardware is completed by using SoPC to integrate various IPs, such as embedded processor, memory, customized control logic circuit, and various peripheral interfaces-RS-232 ports, Ethernet adopters, I/O ports, etc. Due to limited resources of the embedded system, the software does not utilize any operating system. Instead, we directly design an embedded Web server and several CGI programs with different functions into the controller such that users can remotely reconfigure, access, monitor, and control the controller through networks. In addition, application programs that strengthen the functions of the control logic circuit are also designed in the controller. Finally, we employ the proposed scheme to construct a controller for an automatic storage and retrieval system as an application paradigm. The results of integration tests validate the convenience and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.