Design and implementation of real-time simulation system of OTV based on xPC target and SIT

Developing real-time simulation systems by manual programming is a relatively complex, unreliable and costly process. In order to overcome the problems above, real-time simulation systems of the model of orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) were designed in two ways based on xPC Target and mix-programming of LabVIEW/SIT and MATLAB/Simulink, respectively in this paper. Both methods not only had little requirement for the programming skills of the designers but also were convenient for hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations. The process of building the real-time simulation system, semi-physical simulation and the characteristics of the two methods were presented in detail in the paper. The simulation results showed that both methods avoided programming for models and drivers of hardwares successfully. They are efficient ways to develop systems and have high application value.