Digital architectures implementing piecewise-affine functions: An overview

Abstract

In this paper we review and discuss digital circuit architectures implementing piecewise-affine (PWA) functions. These functions are defined over domains that are partitioned (either uniformly or non-uniformly) in polyhedral regions: each PWA function is linear in a polyhedral region. Different solutions, concerning both regular and non-regular domain partitions, are compared in terms of complexity and performances. Measurement results are provided for FPGA implementations. Two examples of control applications are described. On the overall, the goal of this paper is to provide a compact exposition of the state-of-the-art methods for the digital circuit implementation of PWA functions that is accessible to both experts and non-experts.