The Industrial Process Real-time Simulation System Based On Simulink

With the application of automation technology in industrial production process, simulation system has been an indispensably important tool for the analysis, research, design, evaluation, decision and training in most of the complex industrial systems, especially the high-tech industries.In order to avoid the drawbacks of the existing simulation software, such as dependence on running environment, and lack of commonality, friendly monitor interface or diversity of the controlled plant, a visual simulation system based on the MATLAB/Simulink software is developed with requirement and function analysis. By owning the function of building simulated control plant, simulation control, signal input/output and visual monitoring, the proposed simulation system is able to simulate the industrial system directly and vividly without any dependence on the real control plant.According to the system requirements and functions, the typical process control oriented real time simulation system structure is proposed and divided into three parts, including foreground user operation, middle data communication and background simulation computing, by using the modularization design method, and unified interface is provided for redevelopment.An external drive based real-time simulation mode of Simulink is designed. Based on the analysis of simulation mechanism in Simulink, data real-time connection is realized between parameter setting/data display and Simulink through Work Space. Moreover, on line continuous real-time simulation is achieved via the input, initial state and simulation time of the external simulation model. For the purpose of accuracy, celerity and standardization in system construction, a read-time simulation system construction method is applied with special modeling and controller modules based on Simulink toolbox.The main interference and Matlab engine driving interface of the real-time simulation system are developed by using Visual C++, meanwhile, the monitoring interface, special component and control libraries are exploited by Visual Graph and Ctrl List. To validate practical application of the developed simulation system, liquid level control of a nonlinear water tank is carried out, and the result shows high accuracy of the simulation system. In a word, the real-time simulation system is designed to simulate the real production process with well expansibility, rich component and control, easy operation, and multi-interface monitoring. Based on the propose system, the reliability of the process control system is effectively verified to reduce the risk of system debugging and operation.