Noa Toolbox

NOA Toolbox is a development environment based on Simulink. The toolbox is designed to make FPGA acceleration accessible to engineers without deep FPGA expertise. Built around an HDL Coder workflow, NOA Toolbox enables users to generate FPGA bitstreams directly from Simulink models, significantly reducing development time and complexity.

Targeting PYNQ-enabled FPGA platforms, including the NOA Arch1 hardware, the toolbox abstracts low-level hardware details while preserving the key benefits of FPGA technology: ultra-low latency, deterministic execution, and direct access to high-speed I/O. Once deployed, engineers can control and monitor FPGA designs from a host computer through intuitive software interfaces, enabling rapid prototyping, testing, and deployment.

NOA Toolbox bridges the gap between algorithm development and real-time hardware execution. The toolbox enables engineers to focus on signal processing, control, and data acquisition rather than FPGA toolchains and hardware integration. This approach makes FPGA-based solutions practical for various real-time and edge applications where performance, latency, and reliability are critical.

NOA Toolbox targets technical users who require real-time performance but are not FPGA specialists. Typical users include engineers and researchers in instrumentation, robotics, energy systems, electrical networks, mobility, and scientific and technical computing.

The toolbox is well-suited for applications involving low-latency signal acquisition, real-time control, hardware-in-the-loop simulation, fast data processing, and deterministic I/O interaction. NOA Toolbox is relevant for users transitioning from software-only or CPU-based solutions toward FPGA acceleration, seeking performance gains without the steep learning curve traditionally associated with FPGA development.

NOA Toolbox is natively integrated with MATLAB^® and Simulink to leverage their standard workflows and streamline FPGA-based real-time development. Users design and validate algorithms directly in Simulink using floating-point or fixed-point models, then rely on HDL Coder to automatically generate synthesizable HDL code. NOA Toolbox builds on this flow to produce a complete FPGA bitstream targeting PYNQ-enabled platforms, including the NOA Arch1 FPGA.

The toolbox manages hardware interfaces, clocking, and I/O mapping transparently, enabling users to focus on model-level design rather than FPGA infrastructure. Once deployed, users can control the FPGA design from the host using MATLAB or Python-based software interfaces, enabling parameter tuning, data acquisition, and real-time interaction.

NOA Toolbox is fully compatible with MATLAB and Simulink products, supporting iteration, Model-Based Design, and transition from simulation to real-time hardware execution.