Hardware Evolution of Analog Speed Controllers for a DC Motor

David A. Gwaltney¹ and Michael I. Ferguson²

¹NASA Marshall Space Flight Center,
Huntsville, AL 35812, USA
David.A.Gwaltney@nasa.gov

²Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
Michael.I.Ferguson@jpl.nasa.gov

Abstract. Evolvable hardware provides the capability to evolve analog circuits to produce amplifier and filter functions. Conventional analog controller designs employ these same functions. Analog controllers for the control of the shaft speed of a DC motor are evolved on an evolvable hardware plaform utilizing a Field Programmable Transistor Array (FPTA). The performance of these evolved controllers is compared to that of a conventional proportional-integral (PI) controller. It is shown that hardware evolution is able to create a compact design that provides good performance, while using considerably less functional electronic components than the conventional design.

LNCS 2723, p. 442 ff.

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