Jayachandran

Unique Journal of Engineering and

Unique Journal of Engineering and Advanced Sciences

AN FPGA BASED LOW POWE

USING COMPUTER MOUSE

Jayachandran.T

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,

Received: 30-07

Nandha Engineering College, Erode,

This paper is to develop a pick and place robot controlled by easily accessible device like mouse. The pick and

can be used for industrial and excavation operation where human presence is difficult or it may risk his/her life. The mouse

can provide four degree of freedom for controlling the movement and operation of robot arm and gri

The robot control mechanism can be implemented using a microcontroller, an FPGA or ASIC. FPGA can be used to implement any

combinational and sequential digital logic. FPGA has many advantages over microcontroller: some of these are; speed, performa

and number of i/o ports and FPGA is less expensive on limited production and faster time to market than ASIC.

This paper deals with the digital design and their implementation in Spartan 3e FPGA, a pick and place robot using mouse, wit

use of VHDL language. This paper consist of a PS2 mouse

mechanism, Atmega 2560 8-bit microcontroller is used for controlling various motors in a robot, a Zigbee module is used for

communication between FPGA and microcontroller, DC geared motor for controlling robot movement and servo motors for

controlling the arm movement. The simulation of this paper is done using ModelSim simulator and hardware implementation was

carried out using Spartan 3e starter board.

Keywords: Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Spartan 3e,

INTRODUCTION

Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the

design, construction, operation, and application of robots, as

well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback,

and information processing. The device used for controlling

robots needs to be more sophisticated and user friendly. A

computer mouse or a joystick can serve this purpose with

maximum functionality1. Mouse has been a commonly used

pointing device for the past three decades. Mouse can be an

apt device for controlling the mobile Robot. With proper drive

and control mechanism mouse can be used to control this pick

and place robot.

The control mechanism for robot has been implemented using

FPGA. FPGA are future-oriented building bricks which allow

perfect customization of the hardware at an attractive price

even in low quantities. This makes them effective factors for

cost savings and time-to-market when making individual

configurations of standard products. The Mouse interface and

robot operation control bits are implemented using FPGA and

Jayachandran et al. UJEAS 2015, 03 (03): Page 1-4

Unique Journal of Engineering and Advanced Sciences 03 (03), July-September

Unique Journal of Engineering and Advanced Sciences Available online: www.ujconline.net

Research Article

BASED LOW POWER PICK AND PLACE ROBOT

USING COMPUTER MOUSE

Jayachandran.T*, Rathnasabapathy G, Brindha S,

Manikandaprabu N

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Nandha Engineering College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India

07-2015; Revised: 28-08-2015; Accepted: 26-09-2015

*Corresponding Author: Jayachandran T Nandha Engineering College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India.

ABSTRACT

This paper is to develop a pick and place robot controlled by easily accessible device like mouse. The pick and

can be used for industrial and excavation operation where human presence is difficult or it may risk his/her life. The mouse

can provide four degree of freedom for controlling the movement and operation of robot arm and gripper.

The robot control mechanism can be implemented using a microcontroller, an FPGA or ASIC. FPGA can be used to implement any

combinational and sequential digital logic. FPGA has many advantages over microcontroller: some of these are; speed, performa

and number of i/o ports and FPGA is less expensive on limited production and faster time to market than ASIC.

This paper deals with the digital design and their implementation in Spartan 3e FPGA, a pick and place robot using mouse, wit

anguage. This paper consist of a PS2 mouse as an input device, the Spartan 3e FPGA for implementation of control

bit microcontroller is used for controlling various motors in a robot, a Zigbee module is used for

een FPGA and microcontroller, DC geared motor for controlling robot movement and servo motors for

controlling the arm movement. The simulation of this paper is done using ModelSim simulator and hardware implementation was

Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Spartan 3e, Microcontroller, DC geared motor, ASIC

Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the

design, construction, operation, and application of robots, as

well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback,

information processing. The device used for controlling

robots needs to be more sophisticated and user friendly. A

computer mouse or a joystick can serve this purpose with

. Mouse has been a commonly used

three decades. Mouse can be an

apt device for controlling the mobile Robot. With proper drive

and control mechanism mouse can be used to control this pick

The control mechanism for robot has been implemented using

ented building bricks which allow

perfect customization of the hardware at an attractive price

even in low quantities. This makes them effective factors for

market when making individual

se interface and

robot operation control bits are implemented using FPGA and

these control bits are then transmitted to microcontroller in the

Robot. The microcontroller used is Atmega 2650 and this

controls the various motors in robot through L293 H

motor driver ic and PWM wave generated in microcontroller.

The control bits are transmitted to the microcontroller through

Zigbee. The material of this article is arranged as follows

Section II describes the emergence of FPGA for embedded

application. Section III gives overview of the system and robot

operation for various mouse inputs in both the modes. Section

IV gives detail of various modules for mouse interface and

FSM chart and RTL schematic of the project. Simulation

results of communication and mo

Section V. The power consumed by FPGA and behavior of

power for various parameters has been analyzed in Section VI.

FPGA FOR EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

An FPGA is a device that contains a matrix of reconfigurable

gate array logic circuitry. FPGAs comprise an array of

uncommitted circuit elements, called logic blocks, and

interconnect resources as shown in figure

configuration is performed through programming by the end

September 2015 1

Unique Journal of Engineering and Advanced Sciences

ISSN 2348-375X

R PICK AND PLACE ROBOT

Nadu, India

This paper is to develop a pick and place robot controlled by easily accessible device like mouse. The pick and place robot designed

can be used for industrial and excavation operation where human presence is difficult or it may risk his/her life. The mouse used here,

pper.

The robot control mechanism can be implemented using a microcontroller, an FPGA or ASIC. FPGA can be used to implement any

combinational and sequential digital logic. FPGA has many advantages over microcontroller: some of these are; speed, performance

and number of i/o ports and FPGA is less expensive on limited production and faster time to market than ASIC.

This paper deals with the digital design and their implementation in Spartan 3e FPGA, a pick and place robot using mouse, with the

FPGA for implementation of control

bit microcontroller is used for controlling various motors in a robot, a Zigbee module is used for

een FPGA and microcontroller, DC geared motor for controlling robot movement and servo motors for

controlling the arm movement. The simulation of this paper is done using ModelSim simulator and hardware implementation was

these control bits are then transmitted to microcontroller in the

Robot. The microcontroller used is Atmega 2650 and this

controls the various motors in robot through L293 H-bridge

motor driver ic and PWM wave generated in microcontroller.

The control bits are transmitted to the microcontroller through

Zigbee. The material of this article is arranged as follows

Section II describes the emergence of FPGA for embedded

ction III gives overview of the system and robot

operation for various mouse inputs in both the modes. Section

IV gives detail of various modules for mouse interface and

FSM chart and RTL schematic of the project. Simulation

results of communication and movement module is given in

Section V. The power consumed by FPGA and behavior of

power for various parameters has been analyzed in Section VI.

FPGA FOR EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

An FPGA is a device that contains a matrix of reconfigurable

FPGAs comprise an array of

uncommitted circuit elements, called logic blocks, and

interconnect resources as shown in figure 1. FPGA

configuration is performed through programming by the end

Jayachandran

Unique Journal of Engineering and

user2. FPGAs have been responsible for a major shift in the

way digital circuits are designed. FPGA’s are emerging as

suitable platforms for implementing embedded systems.

FPGA’s offer advantages such as high performance and

concurrent computing which makes them attractive in many

embedded applications. As reconfigurable devices, they can be

used to build the hardware and software components of an

embedded system on a single chip.

Figure 1: Internal structure of FPGA

Embedded control systems typically use microprocessors,

microcontrollers or Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) for their

implementation. For such systems, control algorithms are

implemented as software programs that execute on a fixed

architecture hardware processor. The processor itself is

connected to various peripherals such as memories,

Digital converters, and other I/O devices3. Alternatively,

FPGAs are increasingly becoming popular as implementation

platforms on which the control algorithms can be implemented

by programming reconfigurable hardware logic resources

of the device. They offer excellent features such as

computational parallelism, reconfigurable customization, and

rapid-prototyping.

PROPOSED SYSTEM

The proposed system will have a PS2 mouse connected to the

FPGA which intends to control the movement of the robo

shown in figure 2. The FPGA controls the mouse operation by

performing BAT test setting its mode of operation before it

enters into data reporting. The FPGA starts receiving the data

bytes form the mouse and generate control bytes that would

control the movement and arm operation Robot. The operation

of robot for various mouse input data is tabulated in table 1.

The FPGA sends these control bytes through Zigbee module

to the microcontroller in the robot which in turn sends

individual control bits to various motors in the FPGA, thereby

controlling the operation of the robot4.

IMPLEMENTATION

The FPGA implementation has four individual components

interfacing mouse, generating control bytes and transferring

control bits in Uart. The interface module has

components, PS2 interface-for communicating with mouse

using PS2 protocol5.

This interface transparently wraps the byte to be sent into a

PS/2 frame, generates the parity bit, and sends the frame one

bit at a time to the mouse. Similarly, when receiving data from

mouse, the interface receives the frame, checks for parity,

extracts the useful data, and forwards it to the next module.

Jayachandran et al. UJEAS 2015, 03 (03): Page 1-4

Unique Journal of Engineering and Advanced Sciences 03 (03), July-September

. FPGAs have been responsible for a major shift in the

FPGA’s are emerging as

suitable platforms for implementing embedded systems.

FPGA’s offer advantages such as high performance and

concurrent computing which makes them attractive in many

le devices, they can be

used to build the hardware and software components of an

Internal structure of FPGA

Embedded control systems typically use microprocessors,

Signal Processors (DSPs) for their

implementation. For such systems, control algorithms are

that execute on a fixed

architecture hardware processor. The processor itself is

connected to various peripherals such as memories, Analog to

. Alternatively,

FPGAs are increasingly becoming popular as implementation

platforms on which the control algorithms can be implemented

hardware logic resources

device. They offer excellent features such as

computational parallelism, reconfigurable customization, and

The proposed system will have a PS2 mouse connected to the

FPGA which intends to control the movement of the robot as

shown in figure 2. The FPGA controls the mouse operation by

performing BAT test setting its mode of operation before it

enters into data reporting. The FPGA starts receiving the data

bytes form the mouse and generate control bytes that would

he movement and arm operation Robot. The operation

of robot for various mouse input data is tabulated in table 1.

The FPGA sends these control bytes through Zigbee module

to the microcontroller in the robot which in turn sends

rious motors in the FPGA, thereby

lementation has four individual components for

interfacing mouse, generating control bytes and transferring

control bits in Uart. The interface module has two

for communicating with mouse

This interface transparently wraps the byte to be sent into a

PS/2 frame, generates the parity bit, and sends the frame one

bit at a time to the mouse. Similarly, when receiving data from

mouse, the interface receives the frame, checks for parity,

the useful data, and forwards it to the next module.

The next module is mouse controller which resets the mouse

and begins an initialization procedure and receives the mouse

id. The mouse controller interface then sets the mouse to

stream mode with data reporting disabled. The controller then

sets the sampling rate and resolution of the mouse. After

successful assignment of sampling rate and resolution the

mouse enters to data reporting enabled mode[6]. The FSM

describing the mouse controller module is sho

Figure 2: Block Diagram of Proposed system

Table 1: Robot operation for Mouse inputs

Figure 3: FSM chart for Mouse controller

Mouse event Movement mode

X Movement Positive – Steer Right

Negative –

Y Movement

Positive-Forward

Negative -

Left button event Invalid

Right button event Invalid

Middle button event Toggling between modes

Scroll wheel Invalid

September 2015 2

The next module is mouse controller which resets the mouse

and begins an initialization procedure and receives the mouse

id. The mouse controller interface then sets the mouse to

eporting disabled. The controller then

sets the sampling rate and resolution of the mouse. After

successful assignment of sampling rate and resolution the

mouse enters to data reporting enabled mode[6]. The FSM

describing the mouse controller module is shown in figure 3.

Block Diagram of Proposed system

Robot operation for Mouse inputs

FSM chart for Mouse controller

Movement mode

Object Handling

mode

Steer Right Invalid

Steer Left

Forward Positive- gripper

neck rotate right

-Reverse Negative-gripper

neck rotate left

Invalid Gripper closing

Invalid Gripper release

Toggling between modes

Invalid

Forward- Arm

forward movement

Reverse – Arm

reverse movement

Jayachandran

Unique Journal of Engineering and

The movement module actually gets the data from mouse

controller module and it decides the operation of the robot

The appropriate control bits are generated for mouse

movement data packets as shown in table. The movement

module implements Uart module within it which transmits

these control bits through Zigbee at a bit rate of 9600

implementation of the VHDL code is done using Xilinx ISE

project navigator 14.6 and successfully synthesized and the

RTL schematic of synthesized project7-9

is shown in figure 5

Figure 4: RTL schematic of mouse interface

Figure 5: Implementation on a FPGA kit

SIMULATION RESULTS

The simulation of VHDL implementation in FPGA is done

using ModelSim 10.3. The simulation result of movement

control and Uart module is as shown. The result shows the

mode of operation for robot for the status of middle button and

data transmitted by Uart module when a new event has

occurred.

Figure 6: Simulation of movement and Uart module

Jayachandran et al. UJEAS 2015, 03 (03): Page 1-4

Unique Journal of Engineering and Advanced Sciences 03 (03), July-September

The movement module actually gets the data from mouse

controller module and it decides the operation of the robot3.

The appropriate control bits are generated for mouse

movement data packets as shown in table. The movement

module implements Uart module within it which transmits

bits through Zigbee at a bit rate of 9600. The

s done using Xilinx ISE

nthesized and the

is shown in figure 5.

: RTL schematic of mouse interface

kit

SIMULATION RESULTS

The simulation of VHDL implementation in FPGA is done

using ModelSim 10.3. The simulation result of movement

module is as shown. The result shows the

mode of operation for robot for the status of middle button and

data transmitted by Uart module when a new event has

Simulation of movement and Uart module

POWER ESTIMATION

The power estimation report of the model shows that the

amount of total power consumed is 0.079 Watt. It includes a

summary which shows us the power supply informati

power consumed by different blocks and thermal i

including the junction temperatu

is a very significant step for the recent low power design

techniques, before any design is actually fabricated as it gives

a prior estimate to the designer regarding its

Figure 8 shows the behavior of the power with respect to

parameters like voltage, temperature and its function variance

whose characteristic study helps the designer to optimize the

power of the design in future.

Figure 7: Xpower Estimator for Spartan 3e FPGA

Figure 8: Power estimation vs various parameters (voltage, temperature)

CONCLUSION

An FPGA design of mouse controlled pick and place robot

with four degree of freedom has been simulated and

implemented. The system has been designed using VHDL and

implemented on Spartan 3e FPGA kit. The functionality of the

robot can be easily enhanced in

loop control system in the robot. In this project the robot

movement is completely done in open loop which can be

September 2015 3

power estimation report of the model shows that the

amount of total power consumed is 0.079 Watt. It includes a

summary which shows us the power supply information,

blocks and thermal information

including the junction temperature9-21

. This power estimation

is a very significant step for the recent low power design

techniques, before any design is actually fabricated as it gives

a prior estimate to the designer regarding its implementation.

shows the behavior of the power with respect to

parameters like voltage, temperature and its function variance

whose characteristic study helps the designer to optimize the

Estimator for Spartan 3e FPGA

Power estimation vs various parameters (voltage, temperature)

CONCLUSION

An FPGA design of mouse controlled pick and place robot

with four degree of freedom has been simulated and

implemented. The system has been designed using VHDL and

implemented on Spartan 3e FPGA kit. The functionality of the

robot can be easily enhanced in future by including closed

loop control system in the robot. In this project the robot

movement is completely done in open loop which can be

Jayachandran et al. UJEAS 2015, 03 (03): Page 1-4

Unique Journal of Engineering and Advanced Sciences 03 (03), July-September 2015 4

brought up in a closed loop that can avoid obstacles while

navigating. The future scope also include, using a camera for

handling the objects in an isolated environment. By doing so,

the mouse input can be more efficiently used for robot

movement and can be trained to handle objects I different

environment.

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Source of support: Nil, Conflict of interest: None Declared