A multistrategy control system for field controllers of astronomical instruments

As well-known, system on a programmable chip (SOPC) is widely used in a variety of field control systems , due to their flexible configurations and intelligent stand-alone characteristics. They are also increasingly used in astronomical instrument control nowadays. For those complex and diverse systems, a number of different control strategies are stored in FLASH, but the controller of on-chip determines which one to load. At the same time, it can be switched intelligently and remotely to form a multi-strategy control system, so as to extend the control functions and achieve system on-line reconfiguration quickly. In this paper we describe a design concept and realization method of a multistrategy control system on the basis of FPGA-based system on a chip. Its hardware core is Altera's Cyclone series EP3C25 chip .In SOPC BUILDER development environment ,a control system is constructed, which consists of NIOS II soft core as CPU ,REMOTE_UPDATE IP core and control algorithms as well. The concept and design has been verified in the field controllers for various astronomical applications. Satisfactory results have been obtained.