Real time emulation of electrical systems for rapid prototyping in an embedded processor under a multitasking environment

In this paper, we present an embedded platform for real-time emulation of nonlinear electrical circuits in an embedded processor. Electrical systems, if complex, are better implemented if split into number of tasks. These tasks will have different priorities and timing deadlines and hence must be managed by an Operating System. We present and evaluate an iteration time based adaptive time step scheduling algorithm in an embedded linux 2.6.29.6 based operating system with Xenomai-HAL 2.5.2 (Hardware Abstraction Layer) in order to manage the various tasks. The paper explores methods to improve the accuracy of the application by reducing the integration time step. The use of ARM EABI cross compiler is also evaluated.