An integrated package for the simulation and practical evaluation of discrete control systems running within the MATLAB environment

This package allows both the simulation and physical testing of discrete control systems running under PC-MATLAB for DOS. The package has two distinct constituent parts, a “simulator” which performs Runge-Kutta 2nd/3rd order simulation of the system and an “evaluator” which will control the physical system via an analogue and digital I/O card installed in the PC. A menu driven “front-end” for the evaluator allows the hardware set-up to be changed easily and from this menu changes to the controller can easily be made, with the new code being automatically compiled and linked to the evaluator code. One novel feature of this package is that the “C” function performing the discrete control in the simulation can be “bolted” directly into the evaluation software and tested on the real system immediately. Other “m-files” within the package allow the automatic plotting of the results of tests and comparisons with simulations