Texas Instrument's controlSuite Streamlines Motor Control Development

Feb. 8, 2010

Texas Instrument's controlSuite blend an open source framework and toolset into a powerful tool for developing motor control applications.

William G. Wong

1 of Enlarge image

TI's controlSUITE includes an IDE and this framework

Digital motor control and PFC reference design kit

Texas Instrument's controlSUITE combines the latest Eclipse-based Code Composer Studio toolsuite with a development framework (Fig 1) designed to streamline creation of motor applications. That is just the starting point as the framework will be expanded to address the range of applications that the TI C2000 DSP family targets. It will be bundled with development kits like the $599 High Voltage Digital Motor Control and PFC Reference Design Kit (Fig 2) based on the Piccolo F28035 controlCARD.

The controlSUITE may be bundled with development kits and reference designs but it is a full development suite including a framework that incorporates its own operating environment. No additional operating system is needed. The framework is also modular so it is possible to just use the low level bit interface via a C application or to move up the framework API to utiliize the libraries and applications provided by Texas Instruments.This includes the IQ Math Library. There is also fixed point and floating point Control Law Accelerator support for hardware-based acceleration.The motor control library is designed so blocks can easily be combined into more complex control functions using macros. This allows incremental creation and enhancement of applictions as well as minimizing the amount of code that needs to be written from scratch.

The controlSUITE installation has also been streamlined with a web-based interface that a developer only needs to select the platform or kit being used. The entire system installs ready for connection to the hardware complete with sample applications. Subsequent updates are automatic.

The first hardware platform targetted by controlSUITE is the High Voltage Digital Motor Control and PFC Reference Design Kit. It has Piccolo F28035 controlCARD with CAN support. The card runs a 350V three phase single axis inverter capable with a 2HP motor driver stage output (1.5 KW). The system handles two phase interleaved power factor correction with optional bypass and a 700W PFC power input. Tha platform targets ACI, PMSM, and BLDC motors. Sensor and sensorless software control modules are included as part of the controlSUITE framework.

Texas Instruments

TI controlSUITE

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our template and send to me along with a signed release form.

Check out my blog, AltEmbedded on Electronic Design, as well as his latest articles on this site that are listed below.

You can visit my social media via these links:

I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.