A recongurable computing system for an autonomous sailboat

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2008

Authors

José C. Alves (Author) FEUP; Tiago Ramos (Author) FEUP; Nuno Cruz (Author) FEUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: Proceedings of the 1st International Robotic Sailing Conference

International Robotic Sailing Conference

Breitenbrunn, Austria, Maio 2008

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology > Electrical engineering, Electronic engineering, Information engineering

Other information

Abstract (EN): This paper presents the computing infrastructure used in an autonomous unmanned smallscale sailboat. The system is build on a reconfigurable FPGA and includes custom designed interfaces for the various sensors and actuators used in the sailboat. The central processing unit is a 32-bit RISC microprocessor (Microblaze from XILINX) implemented as a soft IP (Intellectual Property) core, running at a maximum frequency of 50 MHz. The computing system runs uClinux, a simplified version of the popular Linux operating system. The usage of a reconfigurable platform enables the possibility to reconfigure completely the processing and control hardware system. This facilitates enormously the development of the control system and allows the selection of different hardware control systems, according to the navigation requirements and environmental conditions.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 8