Linux PC Based Speed Control via Ethernet using an AURIX Microcontroller Board

Abstract

There are drive systems which have comparatively low requirements with respect to the controller cycle time. In particular, some speed and motion controllers implement clock frequencies lower than 20 kHz. The processing power necessary to calculate typical control algorithms at such frequencies is easily fulfilled by modern computers. Unfortunately, typical microcontroller periphery (GPIO, PWM, CCU, I2C, SPI, etc.) is missing in a PC system, hence it is impossible to establish a drive system. Furthermore, standard desktop operating systems are not hard realtime capable. Using the example of a speed controller implementation this paper shows that a standard PC containing an Ethernet interface can be combined with a microcontroller board (MCB) to form a control system without the need for a special operating system software or additional PC hardware. It is a flexible and low-cost solution and in this way interesting for research and development.