DSP in control: the Total Development Environment

Developing a closed-loop control system for a fast mechatronic system involves plant modeling by physical principles or system identification, analysis of dynamics, control design, verification and optimization by off-line simulation, and, if possible, a prototype real-time implementation to verify the controller's function in reality. This paper shows how a suitable tool set integrates all these steps so that the control engineer can do whatever is required under one roof. For maximum speed in the real-time components, single-processor and multiprocessor floating-point DSP systems are employed. These are tightly integrated into the MATLAB(R)/SIMULINK(R) environment. Automatic code generation and direct DSP access with MATLAB are key features. Application examples from industry illustrate the benefit of this Total Development Environment.