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Real-Time Hardware Deployment

Configure and test models using rapid control prototyping (RCP) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations

Real-time hardware deployment workflow enables you to model, simulate, deploy, and test your controllers and plant models in real-time by using rapid control prototyping (RCP) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation. With model-based design, code generation, and real-time testing you can:

  • Test how your designs work in real-world dynamics beyond desktop simulations

  • Find optimal trade-offs without being constrained by hardware and real-time complexities

  • Easily and quickly iterate your designs

  • Significantly reduce development time and improve the reliability of your control algorithms

Rapid control prototyping (RCP) is a model-based design practice that allows you to develop and validate your control algorithms at an early stage. You can develop control systems in a simulated environment and then rapidly deploy them onto physical hardware prototypes for testing and validation instead of deploying and running on the final embedded target.

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation is a real-time simulation technique for testing controller designs. It provides real-time feedback on how controllers respond to virtual stimuli and helps validate physical system models.

By using RCP and HIL simulation, you can prepare and configure your model for real-time simulation, generate VHDL®/ Verilog® code for the physical system (plant) model, deploy the code onto target hardware, and perform HIL simulation to test your design.

You can use RCP and HIL simulation with both Simulink® and Simscape™. Simulink uses signal connections to define data flow between blocks, making it ideal when you know the mathematical model and need to explicitly define system equations. Simscape uses physical connections for bidirectional energy flow between components and automatically derives and solves physical system equations.

Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Simulation Overview

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