how to convert the control design from simulink to C

Question

I have designed a control system in simulink for my project. Now I need to convert this design into C code. But presently no specific hardware processor has been decided on which the code will reside. So I need to run my code from within matlab. I am very new to the industry, so I am unaware of the steps that are followed to change the control design from simulink to embedded C.

Since I have no practical experience about the workflow that I am supposed to follow can I please get some guidance on what are the general norms that has to be done in order to achieve my requirement.

Answer 1

Workflow recommendation:

Make sure your design is tested enough with Simulation. You don't want to detect simple errors when you control real hardware.

Investigate/decide on target requirements. Do you have limited resources (memory/speed) and must customize the generated code to fit a target interface you should use embedded coder. Otherwise Simulink coder could be enough (If you have embedded coder use it anyway).

Make sure your model interfaces match what you expect on target considering datatypes, sizes, logged data and states. If you have special requirements for how to interface the code, you need to set storage classes on signals and other data. If you can live with the default code interface your life will be a lot easier.

Set the proper target in configuration parameters/Code generation/System target file. grt.tlc for rapid prototyping code and ert.tlc for embedded code. Then you can look through optimization and code generation properties and set as you would like. If your target has specific datatypes you should also change the embedded hardware implementation to match datatypes on your target.

Generate code (ctrl-b).

Integrate the code in your target project. Call _initialize once first then in a time based loop set inputs, call _step and read outputs.

It is also possible to make you own custom target to customize the code interface and provide desired output directly, including compiling and downloadingn to target. This is mainly for rapid prototyping and I recommend doing it manually first a few times and then decide if it is worth the effort to automate.

Answer 2

You might want to start looking at some of the examples or videos of Simulink Coder and Embedded Coder. Simulink Coder is for generating C/C++ code, but not necessarily optimised for running on embedded processors (it may be for Rapid Prototyping or Hardware-in-the-Loop purposes for example). Embedded Coder is an add-on to Simulink Coder for optimising the generated code to run on embedded hardware.

You might also want to register some some of their webinars on that topic or look at some recorded ones (there are plenty to choose from).