xPC Target™ 3.4

Product Description

• Introduction and Key Features
• Working with xPC Target
• Communicating Between Host and Target Systems
• Accessing the Target Application
• Controlling and Monitoring Operation
• Interfacing with I/O Devices

Introduction

xPC Target provides a high-performance, host-target prototyping environment that enables you to connect your Simulink and Stateflow models to physical systems and execute them in real time on PC-compatible hardware. xPC Target includes proven capabilities for rapid prototyping and hardware-in-the-loop simulation of control systems.

xPC Target enables you to add I/O interface blocks to your models, automatically generate code with Real-Time Workshop and Stateflow Coder (both available separately), and download the code to a second PC running the xPC Target real-time kernel.

You can use any PC with Intel or AMD 32-bit processors as your real-time target. The target PC can be a desktop computer, an industrial computer, PC/104, PC/104+, CompactPCI, all-in-one embedded PC, or any other PC-compatible form factor.

With the xPC Target Embedded Option (available separately), you can deploy your real-time embedded systems on PC hardware for production, data acquisition, calibration, and testing applications.

Prototyping setup using a laptop PC as the host computer and a single-board computer as a real-time target. Click on image to see enlarged view.

Key Features

• Runs applications generated from Simulink and Stateflow& models using a real-time kernel on any PC
• Supports any desktop PC, PC/104, CompactPCI, industrial PC, or single-board PC computer as a real-time target system
• Achieves sample rates approaching 50 KHz, depending on processor performance level and model size
• Supports more than 250 standard I/O boards, with an extensive I/O device driver library, including driver source code
• Enables signal acquisition and parameter tuning from the host or target PC
• Acquires and logs data in real time to RAM or the file system of the target PC
• Displays data and signal traces on the host PC, target PC, or both
• Provides an integrated host graphical user interface and an object-oriented, MATLAB command-line interface to access the target application running on one or more target PC
• Offers host-target communication via RS-232 or TCP/IP protocol
• Supports the programmatic development of custom graphical user interfaces for access to signals and parameters

Magnetic levitation model (above), created with Simulink and converted to a real-time application that runs on the target PC with the display (right) showing the real-time signals. The application can run with a sample time as low as 20 microseconds. Click on image to see enlarged view.

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