Real-Time Workshop

Software Design with Real-Time Workshop

A typical product cycle using the MathWorks toolset starts with modeling in Simulink, followed by an analysis of the simulations in MATLAB. During the simulation process, you use the rapid simulation features of Real-Time Workshop to speed up your simulations.

After you are satisfied with the simulation results, you use Real-Time Workshop in conjunction with a rapid prototyping target, such as xPC Target. The rapid prototyping target is connected to your physical system. You test and observe your system, using your Simulink model as the interface to your physical target. Once your simulation is functioning properly, you use Real-Time Workshop to transform your model to C code. An extensible make process and download procedure creates an executable for your model and places it on the target system. Finally, using external mode, you can monitor and tune parameters in real-time as your model executes on the target environment.

There are two broad classes of targets: rapid prototyping targets and the embedded target. Code generated for the rapid prototyping targets supports increased monitoring and tuning capabilities. Code generated for embedded targets is highly optimized and suitable for deployment in production systems, and can include application-specific entry points to monitor signals and tune parameters.

To support embedded targets, The MathWorks distributes Real-Time Workshop Embedded Coder as a separate product. Embedded Coder is an extension of Real-Time Workshop designed to generate C code for embedded discrete-time systems, where efficiency, configurability, readability, and traceability of the generated code are extremely important. Real-Time Workshop Embedded Coder enhances Real-Time Workshop code generation technology to generate embeddable ANSI C code that compares favorably with hand-optimized code in terms of performance, ROM code size, RAM requirements, and readability. The Real-Time Workshop Embedded Coder documentation contains information about optimization specifically for embedded code.

For a more complete general overview of the key features, capabilities, and benefits of Real-Time Workshop, please see Appendix D, "The Real-Time Workshop Development Process.

Some Real-Time Workshop Capabilities

The Rapid Prototyping Process