Integrated Design and Implementation of Embedded Control Systems with Scilab

TL;DR

This paper introduces a cost-effective, integrated platform using open-source tools like Linux and Scilab for designing and implementing complex embedded control systems, reducing development time and costs.

Contribution

It presents a reconfigurable embedded platform that unifies design and implementation using open-source software and ported Scilab, enabling complex control algorithms on resource-constrained systems.

Findings

Successful porting of Scilab to ARM-Linux embedded system

Development of communication protocol drivers for serial, Ethernet, and Modbus

Experimental validation demonstrating reduced development time and cost

Abstract

Embedded systems are playing an increasingly important role in control engineering. Despite their popularity, embedded systems are generally subject to resource constraints and it is therefore difficult to build complex control systems on embedded platforms. Traditionally, the design and implementation of control systems are often separated, which causes the development of embedded control systems to be highly time-consuming and costly. To address these problems, this paper presents a low-cost, reusable, reconfigurable platform that enables integrated design and implementation of embedded control systems. To minimize the cost, free and open source software packages such as Linux and Scilab are used. Scilab is ported to the embedded ARM-Linux system. The drivers for interfacing Scilab with several communication protocols including serial, Ethernet, and Modbus are developed. Experiments are conducted to test the developed embedded platform. The use of Scilab enables implementation of complex control algorithms on embedded platforms. With the developed platform, it is possible to perform all phases of the development cycle of embedded control systems in a unified environment, thus facilitating the reduction of development time and cost.