Real-Time Workshop

System Configuration

You can use Real-Time Workshop with a variety of system configurations, as long as these systems meet the following hardware and software requirements.

Hardware Requirements

The hardware needed to develop and run a real-time program includes:

• A workstation running Windows and capable of running MATLAB/Simulink. This workstation is the host where the real-time program is built.
• A PC-AT (386 or later) running DOS. This system is the target, where the real-time program executes.
• I/O boards, which include analog to digital converter and digital to analog converters (collectively referred to as I/O devices), on the target.
• Electrical connections from the I/O devices to the apparatus you want to control (or to use as inputs and outputs to the program in the case of hardware-in-the-loop simulations).

Once built, you can run the executable on the target hardware as a stand-alone program that is independent of Simulink.

Software Requirements

The development host must have the following software:

• MATLAB and Simulink to develop the model, and Real-Time Workshop to create the code for the model. You also need the run-time interface modules included with Real-Time Workshop. These modules contain the code that handles timing, interrupts, data logging, and background tasks.
• Watcom C/C++ compiler, Version 10.6 or 11.0. (see A Note on the Watcom Compiler below.)

The target PC must have the following software:

• DOS4GW extender dos4gw.exe, included with your Watcom compiler package) must be on the search path on the DOS-targeted PC.

You can compile the generated code (i.e., the files model.c, model.h, etc.) along with user-written code using other compilers. However, the use of 16-bit compilers is not recommended for any application.

A Note on the Watcom Compiler

As of this writing, the Watcom C compiler is no longer available from the manufacturer. Real-Time Workshop continues to ship Watcom-related target configurations at this time. However, this policy may be subject to change in the future.

Device Drivers

If your application needs to access its I/O devices on the target, then the real-time program must contain device driver code to handle communication with the I/O boards. The Real-Time Workshop DOS run-time interface includes source code of the device drivers for the Keithley Metrabyte DAS-1600/1400 Series I/O boards. See Device Driver Blocks for information on how to use these blocks.

Simulink Host

The development host must have Windows to run Simulink. However, the real-time target requires only DOS, since the executable built from the generated code is not a Windows application. The real-time target will not run in a "DOS box" (i.e., a DOS window on Windows 95/98/NT).

Although it is possible to reboot the host PC under DOS for real-time execution, the computer would need to be rebooted under Windows for any subsequent changes to the block diagram in Simulink. Since this process of repeated rebooting the computer is inconvenient, we recommend a second PC running only DOS as the real-time target.

Implementation Overview

Sample Rate Limits