FPGA-Based Embedded Control Architecture for a 6-DOF Robotic Manipulator

Yin, Han Her (2026) FPGA-Based Embedded Control Architecture for a 6-DOF Robotic Manipulator. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

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Abstract

Robotic arms are widely used in industrial applications for their repeatability, reliability, and ability to operate continuously without fatigue. They can perform repetitive tasks with precise and consistent accuracy across thousands of cycles. However, to operate a complex, high degree-of-freedom (DOF) robotic arm effectively, the manipulator requires a control system that provides accurate multi-axis coordination, low latency, and responsive supervision.Conventional platforms such as microcontrollers, single board computers, and industrial controllers operate largely in a sequential manner, which makes deterministic timing, true parallel multi-axis actuation, and low latency supervisory interfaces difficult to achieve. Thus, a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is proposed to address these issues by leveraging its parallelism and high speed. Although it has limitations such as higher cost, a steeper learning curve for hardware description languages and toolchains, more involved debugging, and limited high-level library support, the FPGA approach is expected to deliver deterministic timing and synchronized multi-axis control with improved responsiveness, which motivates this project. Therefore, this project aims to design and implement an FPGA-based embedded control system for a 6-DOF robotic manipulator. The FPGA provides hardware-level parallelism to generate precise pulse-width module signals and to achieve synchronized control across all servo motors. The control logic includes a finite state machine for task sequencing, kinematic computations, and a communication protocol between the host computer and the controller. A graphical user interface provides real-time monitoring and control, with lower latency than typical operating system-based solutions