Etherlab^®/RTW

EtherLab^®/RTW is a system to create controllers using EtherCAT^® hardware, that run with the EtherLab^® EtherCAT^® master inside the Linux kernel. The user is able to create models using the MATLAB/Simulink^® library etherlab_lib, that are compiled to a loadable Linux kernel module by traversing Realtime Workshop and EtherLab^®/RTW.

A blockset was created for the real time connection of EtherCAT^® components in MATLAB/Simulink^®. EtherCAT slaves can be selected from the etherlab_lib in MATLAB/Simulink/RTW^® and directly included into the model. After that, the model is translated to C code and compiled to a loadable Linux kernel module.

The EtherLab^®/RTW package can be subdivided into the components listed below:

• The etherlab_lib for MATLAB/Simulink^®. It contains all necessary blocks for the creation of models with EtherCAT^® slaves.
• The support code, that compiles a Linux kernel module of the output of Realtime Workshop. This happens in background and is not visible to the user.
• The kernel module rt_kernel, that is responsible for the real time execution of the created models. On loading, the modules register at the rt_kernel.
• The EtherLab^® "Buddy Process", that acts as a counterpart to the rt_kernel in user space and is responsible for providing real time data in user space.

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