REALTIME HARDWARE EMULATION FOR RAPID PROTOTYPING AND TESTING OF DIGITAL CONTROL SYSTEMS

In this paper, a software architecture for the rapid prototyping of digital control systems and for realtime simulation of the control loop, including both controller and plant dynamics, is presented. This system is based on RTAI-Linux, and its main goal is to simplify the testing phase of digital controllers by using an unified interface between the controller and the simulated or real plant. The unified interface, based on the COMEDI library, allows to switch the controller from the simulated to the real plant without any modification of the control software. The system, besides being useful for rapid prototyping of mechatronic control systems, may be used for fault detection, and also as a teaching tool in Mechatronic/Digital Control Courses. A case study, a controller for an inverted pendulum, is presented and discussed.