Real-Time Control Prototyping in MATLAB/Simulink: Review of tools for research and education in mechatronics

The simulation modeling and the control of real plant are two-very often separated-fields of mechatronic practice, research and education. The deep gap between simulation world of controlled system and practical implementation in e.g. embedded hardware can be bridged through the use of special hardware and software directly in MATLAB/Simulink environment. This paper presents the review of available tools with respect to their usability, sampling rate capability, the necessary software needs and also the financial requirements. Most of approaches require the C code generation using Real-Time Workshop. However e.g. the Real-Time Toolbox works directly with normal mode of Simulink which can be especially recommended for the educational applications. The paper briefly describes several case studies where undergraduate students can deal with real educational models without previous knowledge of the real-time systems. The list of available hardware and software tools is not complete but includes all important approaches: low cost general purpose I/O card with/without C code generation, high-performance hardware for comfort rapid prototyping or hardware-in-the-loop simulation and code generation for embedded targets (16 or 32bit microcontrollers or DSP).