ENGG*4420

Real Time System Design

Labs Introduction

TA: Aws Abu-Khudhair

(aabukhud@uoguelph.ca)
Tuesday 11:30 - 2:20
Thursday 12:30 - 3:20
ENGG*4420 Lab 1 1
Today’s Activities

 General Introduction
 Lab 1 Introduction
 Fill in swipe card form
 Make groups (min 2 students, max 3)
 Start work on Lab 1

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 2
General Introduction

 Course consists of 4 labs:

 Modeling the PT 326 Process Trainer.
 Real-Time Automotive Suspension
Simulator.
 Real-Time Control of a Hot Air Plant
using RTOS uC/OSII
 Multi-Core Real-Time Suspension
Control using LabVIEW Real-Time OS

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 3
Deadlines

 Demos and reports are due at

the same time.
 Lab 1: Tuesday, Sep. 28th
 Lab 2: Tuesday, Oct. 12th
 Lab 3: Tuesday, Nov. 2nd
 Lab 4: Tuesday, Nov. 30th

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 4
Marking

 Labs 1 and 2 - 8% each.

 4% for the demo, 4% for the report.
 Labs 3 and 4 - 12% each.
 6% for the demo, 6% for the report.
 A group work evaluation form MUST
be submitted with every lab report.
 http://www.soe.uoguelph.ca/webfiles/rmuresa
n/ENG3490-W06.htm

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 5
Lab 1

Modeling the PT 326

Process Trainer

Due Date: Tuesday Sep. 28th, 2009

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 6
Lab 1 Development Environment

 LabVIEW 2009 software

 Nios II IDE
 Altera Nios II Embedded Evaluation
Kit

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 7
Lab 1 – Simple Hot Air Blower
PT 326 Process Trainer

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 8
Lab 1 Architecture

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 9
Control of a Thermal System

LabVIEW

Altera
Plant Model
dS
Vi Ke
 Equation (6)
VO s  1
LabVIEW Plant Implementation
 The Plant system is defined in LV
using transfer function VIs.
Setup Plant Transfer Function Execute Plant System
Control System
 PID-based control system
 Proportional
 Integral
 Derivative
 Control is based on an Error signal
 Implemented in LabVIEW using the
PID VI
Set Point
Output
Process Variable
Lab 1 Requirements/Steps

 Step 1: Study and understand the

implementation files provided:
 Hot Air Plant Model CD Vis Lab1.vi.
 Engg4420_example.c
 Engg4420_example.h
 C:\C:\engg4420_lab1_labview
 C:\engg4420_lab1

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 14
Lab 1 Requirements/Steps

 Step 2: Tune the PID controller

using the Ziegler and Nichols
method.
 Perform BOTH open loop, and closed
loop tuning procedures (pg.12).
 Step 3: Establish communication
between LabVIEW and Altera board
 Step 4: Graph the plant output on
the Altera LCD.
ENGG*4420 Lab 1 15
Introduction to LabVIEW

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 16
LabVIEW

 Graphical development environment.

 Used for measurements, data
acquisition, measurement analysis,
report generation, plant modeling,
control systems, Embedded Design,
Signal Processing etc…
 Dataflow Language
www.ni.com/labview

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 17
LabVIEW Virtual Instruments
(VIs)
 Built in functions used to create any
application

 Each VI requires a specific number of

inputs.
 Select a VI and press “ctrl+H” for information
regarding the VI
ENGG*4420 Lab 1 18
Front Panel

 Contains the user interface

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 19
Block Diagram

 Contains the VIs and the necessary

connections.
 Execution Control (loops, case
structures, formula node, etc…)

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 20
Altera Nios II Embedded
Evaluation Kit

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 21
Altera Nios II Board Devices
 16 MB of Intel P30/P33 flash.
 32 MB of DDR SDRAM.
 Color LCD touch-screen display.
 USB connector.
 Serial connector.
 10/100 Ethernet physical layer/media
access control (PHY/MAC).
 Six push buttons total.
 Seven LEDs total.
 Embedded FPGA board.

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 22
Altera Nios II IDE

 Altera -> Nios II EDS 8.0 -> Nios II

IDE 8.0
 Examples are located at
‘C:\Altera\80\nios2eds\examples’
 Follow ‘ENGG4420_example.c’ for
relevant operations.
 LCD + Multitasking + Serial Comm.

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 23
 uC/OS-II is a highly portable, very scalable,
preemptive real-time, deterministic,
multitasking kernel.
 It can manage up to 64 tasks
 It has connectivity with uC/GUI and uC/FS.
 It is ported to more than 100
microprocessors and microcontrollers.
 It supports all type of processors from 8 to
64 bits

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 24
How to implement Lab1?
1. Read chapter 1 of the lab manual.
2. Preparation 1- Review the Implementation
of the Plant System.
 Hot Air Blower.VI
3. Preparation 2 – Review and Analyze the
implementation of the uC/OSII tasks
 ENGG4420_example.c
 ENGG4420_example.h
4. Preparation 3 – Establish connection
between LabVIEW and Altera board

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 25
How to implement Lab1? Cont.

5. Tuning (Lab Manual section 1.3 – pg. 12)

 Perform Open and Closed loop tuning methods
to derive a set of workable PID constants.

Talk to your TA if you are not familiar with

PID control

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 26
How to implement Lab1? Cont.

6. Implement the communication Tasks in

LabVIEW and Nios II.
Do the following first:
 Make a folder at “H:\RTLabs\your-project-name”
 In Nios IDE setup the project path at ---

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 27
How to implement Lab1? Cont.
6. Cont.
a) LabVIEW-> Transmit the plant output
value to the Altera board using serial
communication.
b) Altera-> Receive the transmitted
value and graph it on the LCD in RT.
c) Altera-> Send the output value back
to LabVIEW.
d) LabVIEW -> Read the plant value
from serial IO and process it (PID).
ENGG*4420 Lab 1 28
Implementation Suggestions
 Use synchronization semaphores to
organize the communication process.
 Create a new RxTx_uart on the Altera
board. Set a delay on the task that
matches the LabVIEW sample
interval.
 Create a separate task on the Altera
board for graphing the voltage values
Notes - How to set up Hyper
Terminal?
 Start All Programs 
Accessories 
Communication Hyper
Terminal  Assign a
name to your hyper
terminal  select COM1
 select 115200, 8,
None, 1, None.

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 30
Notes - LabVIEW

 Occasionally, you may need to

convert data for interconnectivity.
This can be done using the
conversion blocks (Mathematics 
Numeric  Conversion)

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 31
Notes - LabVIEW

 Local Variables can be

used to give inputs to
controls. They can be
found in the “Structures”
section of the function
palette. You can configure
them to be either read or
write depending the
required operation.

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 32
Notes - LabVIEW

 When setting up a feedback node,

you need to wire in a constant from
outside the loop for initialization

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 33
Notes - LabVIEW

 To easily locate VIs use the search

tool in the functions and controls
panels.

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 34
Note – LabVIEW examples
 LabVIEW
examples can
be found in the
‘Help’ Menu
under ‘Find
Examples’.
Note – LabVIEW examples
 Examples
using specific
VIs can be
found through
the ‘context
help’
Notes – Serial Communication

 LV serial comm. is performed using NI

VISA.
 Perform the serial port write operation
using a termination char
 See the “Advanced Serial Write and
Read.vi” example
Setup serial comm. Write to serial port Read from serial port

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 37
Note – Serial Communication Cont.
 Order of operations:
 Configure serial port:
 Enable read on termination char.
 Set termination char.
 Set timeout.
 Define VISA resource (COM1 or COM2).
 Define Baud rate ….
 Define ‘write’ termination char.
 Define input buffer size.
 Write string (data must be in char not float).
 Close session at end.
Deadlines and Marking

 Lab 1 is worth 8%.

 4% for the report, and 4% for the demo
 The Demo is due Sep. 28th, 2010 in the
Lab.
 The Report is due Sep. 28th, 2010 in the
Lab.
 A signed group evaluation sheet must be
submitted with the lab report

ENGG*4420 Lab 1 39