Generic tools for real-time simulation and control of complex systems

Results are reported from a feasibility study on the use of parallel processing platforms for real-time simulation and control. This has developed a back-end accelerator which takes the output of SIMULINK-an icon based menu driven package- and automatically generates executable parallel code without user intervention. Hence the user can design and simulate a control system using the familiar SIMULINK interface, execute the simulation in real time, and then analyse the results using, for example, the powerful facilities of MATLAB. An example from the chemical industry is used to support the results presented. Follow up work on the inclusion of advanced feedback control schemes is discussed. In particular, the inclusion of a module for generalised predictive control is presented