Design and Implementation of Elevator Controller using VHDL and Altera Cyclone II FPGA

Bagus Hanindhito¹, Dinda Tisi Calista^2
1Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
²Department of Informatics, School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
Email : ¹hanindhito@bagus.my.id, ²dindatcalista@gmail.com

Abstract—Multi-storey building usually has an elevator to help people and logistics move from one floor to the other. Each of the elevators must be controlled with an elevator controller, allowing them to serve each level efficiently. A complex elevator controller can handle multiple lifts at once, giving flexibility to dispatch elevator to fulfill multiple request at one time. Most of the elevator controllers are implemented using PLC.

In this project, an elevator controller is implemented on an FPGA using VHDL language. The elevator controller consists of combinational logic circuits and a finite state machine. It can accept multiple requests at once and will automatically arrange the request so that the elevator takes the shortest path as possible. This will save people’s waiting time and travel time across the floor. It also displays where the elevator position is and what requests have been made.

After simulating the design using predefined input pattern, the design is implemented in an Altera Cyclone II FPGA. For testing purpose only, there is also a monitor output via VGA port that displays the position of the elevator and the requests that have been made. In the future, the elevator controller in the FPGA can be interfaced into power electronics circuit that drives the elevator.

Index Terms— Elevator Controller, Finite State Machine, FPGA Implementation, Synthesizable VHDL