Feasibility study on Handel C for Embedded Control

The control engineering group at the University of Twente creates control applications for embedded systems among others. In order to create such applications, graphical modelling tools such as 20-sim and gCSP are used to generate software for various platforms. Currently, the output of these code generating programs is ANSI C code, which rules out the use of FPGA's as a target. FPGA devices offer tailored hardware, are able to run multiple processes in true parallel and achieve speeds that can exceed even the fastest computer. This makes the FPGA a perfect platform for control applications. However, the FPGA needs a program to define its functionality, and current languages such as VHDL are not supported by the commonly used tooling. Handel-C is able to create programs for the FPGA platform using an ANSI C like programming language. Since Handel-C is based on ANSI C, it lends itself for code generation, which closes the gap between the above mentioned graphical modelling tools and the FPGA platform. This report studies the feasibility of Handel-C for embedded control by testing its abilities in: • General syntax • Controlling Hardware • FPGA support • Fixed point and floating point operations • Lending itself for code generation Through studying the manual and various tests the capabilities of Handel-C are investigated, giving a glimpse of the applications of the language. These tests prove that Handel-C has an easy syntax for those familiar with ANSI C. Hardware control, FPGA support and gCSP code generation does not provide any problems. However, due to the limited support of floating point and fixed point numbers, 20-sim code generation is not yet possible. Finally, this feasibility study gives suggestions for further projects and studies on Handel-C as an interesting language for the creation of control applications. Preface I want to thank Jan Broenink and Marcel Groothuis for providing this interesting assignment. I also want to thank them for their assistance and guidance throughout this feasibility study. Geert Jan Laanstra, thank you for obtaining and helping me install the Celoxica environment and the RC10 board. Special thanks go out to Marloes Blaauw, my girlfriend, for her support and for checking, proofreading and editing my report.