FPGA Controller Design and Simulation of a Portable Dough Mixing Machine

Abstract

Biscuit and chocolate cookies are normally produced by industrial based processes and machinery using analog and IC gate-based Controllers. With the advent of Microcontrollers, Application Specic Integrated Circuits, Digital Signal Processors (DSP) and Programmable Logic Devices, complex industrial systems and controls can now be integrated into portable embedded household electronic systems. In this paper, the design and simulation of a Dough Mixer Controller (DMC) with Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) closed-loop motor feedback control, is undertaken for a home-based biscuit Cookie machine. DC motor behaviour is modelled and simulated with Matlab/Simulink. Synthesizable VHDL Design and Simulation is carried out with Quartus II Web-Edition 9.0 and ModelSIM EDA software tools, using an Altera Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) development system to verify the PID algorithm applied. Simulation results show that the PID algorithm programmed into the FPGA-based controller, eectively maintained the Permanent Magnet (PM) DC motor of the mixer at constant torque over an operational 3-speed range. The mixer agitated the 10g dough ingredients fed into the mixing compartment. Subsequently, the mixture resulted in the formation of a proteinous and coherent viscoelastic dough structure, consistent with published works on dough mix-texture. The dough can subsequently be baked into biscuit cookies.