Rapid Prototyping

Abstract

The developed methodology aims to study and define a platform for “Rapid Prototyping,” in a full “Model-Based Design” approach, providing a significant reduction in the development time. The described approach allows us to test algorithm models, realized by the designer in Simulink™, directly on a real platform (prototype On Board Computer), in real time, to evaluate the performance in terms of computational load. The main advantages of this innovative approach with respect to the traditional one are an increased robustness of the algorithms before the integration (reduction of development time) and the ability to quickly evaluate different design solutions in terms of performance and reliability. With the implementation of the described design logic is possible to put the On Board Computer in the loop simulation starting from the early stages of development (CIL—computers in the loop). The proposed methodology enables us to automatically generate, through the Simulink™ platform, embedded code with its makefile realized models; to send the generated files via Ethernet to a remote device (On Board Computer, etc.) with operating system “Linux,” Real-Time Linux, etc.; to compile the project through makefile directly on a remote system; and to run it, all in a fully automatic and user-friendly way.