<p>Matlab Simulink is a commonly used tool in the design process of control systems. To further take advantage of the Matlab Simulink models it is desirable to translate them for realtime use together with the possibility to read/write physical signals. </p><p>Real-Time Workshop is an extension to Simulink that automatically generates code from a model to a variety of target platforms. RTAI and RTLinux are hard realtime operating systems, making use of Linux. </p><p>To make automatically generated code run on RTAI and RTLinux an adaptation of the generation of code is necessary. </p><p>To control, for example, an automotive engine a data acquisition card with an appropriate device driver is required. Comedi, an open source project, provides a number of device drivers for data acquisition cards. </p><p>The developed system makes use of Simulink, Real-Time Workshop, RTAI or RTLinux, and the standard data acquisition card NI 6035E using a Comedi device driver. The Simulink models may be executed at frequencies up to 50 kHz on ordinary PC hardware. </p><p>The evaluation of the system consisted of measuring the interrupt latency of the used motherboard's bus, measuring computation times running Simulink models with known complexity, running models developed at Vehicular Systems and a comparison of interfacing Simulink/Real-Time Workshop between RTAI and RTLinux. </p><p>The recommended realtime operating system is RTAI due to the open source community support of it as a target platform for Real-Time Workshop.</p>

In the past decade, the technologies of computer communication and PC hardware/software evolve in a very fast pace. Many conventional industries are refurbished with these new tools. Hence the operation of the industry can be improved, and even the products, equipped with new technology, demonstrate a new dimension of their function. Among all these new ideas or tools, we would like to study the feasibility of integrating WWW server, Java JNI, Real-time Linux and PC-based hardware components together to form an internet-based manufactory service server. In this work, we use Linux Redhat OS as the platform, and its Apache homepage server to provide users to access the services, such as activating a relay or retrieving the status of a limit switch. Enhanced with Java JNI, the WWW server can access the control of PC's hardware. More importantly, patching the OS with real-time packages, the WWW server is transformed into real-time controller which is much cheaper and much reliable than its opponents, such as Microsoft NT. RS 232 serial ports, an 8255 multi-function I/O card, optical encoder card, D/A card and a servo motor are integrated under the command of the WWW server. By browsing the control center's homepage, users can easily acquire the status of the peripherals, or send out control command remotely. Experiment results confirm the performance of the system. The structure of this experimental server can be modified to fit the requirement of a remotely operated or tele-monitoring system by rewriting the homepage.

Matlab Simulink is a commonly used tool in the design process of control systems. To further take advantage of the Matlab Simulink models it is desirable to translate them for realtime use together with the possibility to read/write physical signals. Real-Time Workshop is an extension to Simulink that automatically generates code from a model to a variety of target platforms. RTAI and RTLinux are hard realtime operating systems, making use of Linux. To make automatically generated code run on RTAI and RTLinux an adaptation of the generation of code is necessary. To control, for example, an automotive engine a data acquisition card with an appropriate device driver is required. Comedi, an open source project, provides a number of device drivers for data acquisition cards. The developed system makes use of Simulink, Real-Time Workshop, RTAI or RTLinux, and the standard data acquisition card NI 6035E using a Comedi device driver. The Simulink models may be executed at frequencies up to 50 kHz on ordinary PC hardware. The evaluation of the system consisted of measuring the interrupt latency of the used motherboard's bus, measuring computation times running Simulink models with known complexity, running models developed at Vehicular Systems and a comparison of interfacing Simulink/Real-Time Workshop between RTAI and RTLinux. The recommended realtime operating system is RTAI due to the open source community support of it as a target platform for Real-Time Workshop.

Panoramas or stitched images are used in topographical mapping, panoramic 3D reconstruction, deep space exploration image processing, medical image processing, multimedia broadcasting, system automation, photography and other numerous fields. Generating real-time panoramic images in small embedded computer is of particular importance being lighter, smaller and mobile imaging system. Moreover, this type of lightweight panoramic imaging system is used for different types of industrial or home inspection. A real-time handheld panorama imaging system is developed using embedded real-time Linux as software module and Gumstix Overo and PandaBoard ES as hardware module. The proposed algorithm takes 62.6602 milliseconds to generate a panorama frame from three images using a homography matrix. Hence, the proposed algorithm is capable of generating panorama video with 15.95909365 frames per second. However, the algorithm is capable to be much speedier with more optimal homography matrix. During the development, Ångström Linux and Ubuntu Linux are used as the operating system with Gumstix Overo and PandaBoard ES respectively. The real-time kernel patch is used to configure the non-real-time Linux distribution for real-time operation. The serial communication software tools C-Kermit, Minicom are used for terminal emulation between development computer and small embedded computer. The software framework of the system consist UVC driver, V4L/V4L2 API, OpenCV API, FFMPEG API, GStreamer, x264, Cmake, Make software packages. The software framework of the system also consist stitching algorithm that has been adopted from available stitching methods with necessary modification. Our proposed stitching process automatically finds out motion model of the Spherical camera system and saves the matrix in a look file. The extracted homography matrix is then read from look file and used to generate real-time panorama image. The developed system generates real-time 180° view panorama image from a spherical camera system. Beside, a test environment is also developed to experiment calibration and real-time stitching with different image parameters. It is able to take images with different resolutions as input and produce high quality real-time panorama image. The QT framework is used to develop a multifunctional standalone software that has functions for displaying real-time process algorithm performance in real-time through data visualization, camera system calibration and other stitching options. The software runs both in Linux and Windows. Moreover, the system has been also realized as a prototype to develop a chimney inspection system for a local company. / Main Uddin-Al-Hasan, E-mail: main.hasan@gmail.com