A Networked Embedded Real-time Controller for Complex Control Systems

The complexity of real-world industrial control systems is growing rapidly due to expanding requirements on the system functionalities. As this trend continues, the old control system is becoming less and less efficient. To solve this problem, in this paper, we develop a networked embedded real-time controller on which various control applications such as modeling, parameter identification, simulation and real-time control can be easily implemented to meet the ever-expanding requirements of complex industrial control applications. The embedded controller is built based on dual-core architecture (ARM plus DSP) to achieve high computational performance. A unified software development environment for complex control method is also developed to reduce the development time and cost. Finally, a complex control algorithm is implemented for a practical plant, which demonstrates the capabilities and the performances of the embedded controller. This controller can be widely used for educational, academic and industrial applications.