NI LabVIEW Simulation Interface Toolkit

Overview
The National Instruments LabVIEW Simulation Interface Toolkit gives control system design and test engineers a link between NI LabVIEW and The MathWorks, Inc. Simulink® software. With the NI LabVIEW Simulation Interface Toolkit, you can easily build custom LabVIEW user interfaces to view and control your simulation model during run time. This toolkit also provides a plug-in for The MathWorks, Inc. Real-Time Workshop® to import your models created in the Simulink environment into LabVIEW allowing you to connect your model to the real world through a variety of real-time I/O platforms (requires LabVIEW Real-Time). With these capabilities, you can easily take your models from software verification to real-world prototyping and hardware-in-the-loop simulation.

Verify Models with a LabVIEW User Interface
The NI LabVIEW Simulation Interface Toolkit enables you to build custom user interfaces for models created in the Simulink environment. The SIT Connection Manager offers a configuration-based utility to connect a custom LabVIEW user interface to your models, eliminating the need for any programming knowledge. The custom user interface enables you to easily simulate, analyze, and verify your control model on a desktop PC. Creating a custom user interfaces for your simulation model is accomplished in four steps:

Step 1. The LabVIEW Simulation Interface Toolkit adds a SignalProbe block to the Simulink environment. Place the SignalProbe in the top level of your model to enable LabVIEW to communicate with your model while it is running in the Simulink environment.
Step 2. Create a LabVIEW user interface by placing controls and indicators on a LabVIEW front panel.
Step 3. Use the SIT Connection Manager to specify the links between the LabVIEW user interface and your model.
Step 4. Start your simulation in the Simulink environment by selecting run in your LabVIEW user interface.

Deploying Models to Real-Time Hardware
The LabVIEW Simulation Interface Toolkit also provides a plug-in for The MathWorks, Inc. Real-Time Workshop® software that helps facilitate the importation of your models into LabVIEW. When used with LabVIEW Real-Time, this capability allows you to connect your model to the real world through a variety of real-time I/O platforms and still provides the user interface capabilities utilized in the verification of the model. The LabVIEW environment allows you to select the appropriate real-time platform based on the performance, portability, and durability requirements of your application.

The LabVIEW Simulation Interface Toolkit makes it easy to connect your models to a combination of analog, digital, and protocol-based I/O devices using the SIT Connection Manager. In addition to the user interface and I/O configuration, this utility also enables you to easily add stimulus to your application using multichannel data profiles. You also can specify multirate data logging on a per-channel basis to optimize file size and application performance. All of these capabilities can be configured without programming; however, you can further customize your configurations and add more features using LabVIEW graphical programming.

Simulink® and Real-Time Workshop® are registered trademarks of The MathWorks, Inc.

Additional Product Information

Related Information

• DEMO - Deploying Models to Real-Time Hardware
• DEMO - Creating User Interfaces for Models Developed in the Simulink Environment
• LabVIEW Simulation Interface Toolkit 4.0 Help
• How to Create Custom FPGA-based I/O for LabVIEW SIT
• How to Create a Custom I/O Driver for LabVIEW SIT