Real-time control system with NI USB board?

Hello!

I have a question related to Matlab and Simulink. I need to create a real time control system. I have a NI-USB-6212 board with BNC connectors and the measuring system works (e.g. when I want to collect data from sensor).

I'm wondering how to make a real-time system. I wanted to try to do it in Simulink and use another computer as the target computer. But I found an information that since 2021 Simulink supports only speedgoat target machines. To be honest - I have financial limits and I would love to use a speedgoat target machine, but I need to find a cheaper solution.

Will it be possible using this NI card I have? For example using older MATLAB version?

The second solution that comes to my mind is to make this control system on a microcontroller, e.g. STM32. In this way I would need to create program in C/C++.

And a third option that could potentially work is to use LabVIEW, but I haven't figured it out yet. I have never worked in LabVIEW.

I must admit that I would prefer to do this control system in MATLAB/Simulink, because I have been working in this environment for several years and I just know it.

Thanks in advance for help.

Answer 1

[Diego Kuratli]

The NI-USB-6212 is supported by the Data Acquisiton Toolbox and the NI-DAQmx support package:

https://www.mathworks.com/products/data-acquisition.html

https://www.mathworks.com/hardware-support/nidaqmx.html

It won't be hard real-time, but you can use the Simulink Pacer.

[Romuald Kuras]

Thank you very much. I had never heard of the Simulink Pacer before. I will try it.