Design of an Automatic Device Controller Based on Temperature Sensing by Using Verilog HDL Targeting an FPGA

Abstract

To get a single controller that is capable to produce some control signal depending on sensing temperature is getting popularities for industrial and home applications. In this paper uses an LM34 Precision Fahrenheit Temperature Sensor IC and an ADC0820 8-Bit, high-speed, µP-compatible flash A/D converter IC in order to design and implement the mentioned controller onto a SPARTAN^TM-II Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) by using Digilent^TM Pegasus SPARTAN-II FPGA Board, the Verilog HDL has been used for hardware description of the proposed controller. The controller has been designed to measure the temperature as well as to display the temperature on a 7-segment display and then, depending on the pre-defined or configurable temperature values, the controller is capable of generating control signals that could be used to control any other electrical or electro-mechanical devices like Fans, Heaters and etc. This approach is different from existing Temperature based Device Controller ICs in a sense that, the new approach allows user to set different ranges of temperature by setting jumpers or combination of switches or buttons,  at which level of temperature range the user would like to get a signal to control  external device(s).

Keywords: Controller, Sensor, SPARTAN-II, FPGA, Verilog HDL