Development of Uniform Hardware Driver for Real-Time Windows and xPC Target

Real-time windows target (RTWT) and xPC Target are two MATLAB/Simulink toolboxes used for real time simulation, prototyping, testing, and deploying real-time systems, but the application is greatly limited due to lack of enough hardware drivers. Another problem is that drivers of one toolbox are incompatible with those of the other, so different models should be created for the same task, which is troublesome sometimes. Based on the principle of the driver, this paper studied some key issues on developing uniform driver for RTWT and xPC. Firstly, principle of the RTWT and xPC drivers was examined. Secondly, solutions were put forward targeting the key issues of registers access and base address lookup, and drivers were developed for PCI-8360A. Finally, RTWT and xPC tests were conducted, and results showed that the drives with seven channels A/D conversion could achieve 10 kHz sample rate, which indicates that the drivers are steady and can be shared, and the solutions are effective.