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A programmable logic controller (PLC) executes a ladder diagram (LD) using input and output modules. An LD also has PID controller function blocks. It contains as many PID function blocks as the number of process parameters to be controlled. Adding more process parameters slows down PLC scan time. Process parameters are measured as analog signals. The analog input module in the PLC converts these analog signals into digital signals and forwards them to the PID controller as inputs. In this research work, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based multiple PID controller is proposed to retain PLC scan time at a lower value. Concurrent execution of multiple PID controllers was assured by assigning separate FPGA hardware resources for every PID controller. Digital input to the PID controller is routed by the novel idea of analog to digital conversion (ADC), performed using a digital to analog converter (DAC), comparator, and FPGA. ADC combined with dedicated PID controller logic in an FPGA for every closed-loop control system confirms concurrent execution of multiple PID controllers. The time required to execute two closed-loop controls was identified as 18.96000004 ms. This design can be used either with or without a PLC.

Powerful advantages of programmable logic controller (PLC) dominate process industries. Scan time of PLC increases with the number of inputs, rungs added in ladder diagram (LD). Researchers have identified and proved that field programmable gate array (FPGA) is more suitable than PLC for high speed applications. PLC executes the instructions represented through LD. PLC programmers are not familiar with FPGA programming. But, FPGA does not support LD based programming. This work has developed application software to generate equivalent VerilogHDL code for LD using LabVIEW. Novelty in this work is that each rung is defined using an "assign" statement which helps simultaneous execution of all the rungs. A data acquisition system was created to monitor the digital signals handled by the FPGA. The software was verified with a case study of substances mixing and traffic light control system.

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