Simulink Real-Time R2020b Product Update

With R2020b, MathWorks is releasing a major update for Simulink Real-Time, which contains several exciting new capabilities and a licensing change. In R2020a and earlier, Simulink Real-Time used a 32-bit real-time operating system. Starting in R2020b, Simulink Real-Time will leverage a 64-bit POSIX-compliant operating system. With the new operating system, you'll be able to create larger files and address more memory on your target computer.

Their cross compiler is now provided free of charge and can be installed through the Simulink Real-Time Target Support Package. Using a C compiler from Microsoft will no longer be required.

To start using the new RTOS, you'll need to upgrade the software and migrate the file system on your target computer to be compatible with R2020b. The Speedgoat target machine migration tool will guide you through the process for updating the target software. If needed, you can also use the tool to revert any upgrades so that you can work with previous versions of Simulink Real-Time.

After updating your target, the overall Simulink Real-Time experience will generally be the same, aside from some of the exciting new features that I'm going to talk about in the rest of the video. Once you generate code and deploy a real-time application using one quick code generation, the new Simulink Real-Time Explorer will provide a single point of contact for interacting with real-time applications. You can manage multiple target machines and their applications, tune parameters, monitor signals, and select signals to stream to Simulation Data Inspector.

If you need to frequently change between different real-time applications, you can now install multiple applications on your target computer. For deployment workflows, you can select an application to run on startup so that it executes as soon as the target powers on. If you no longer need one of the applications on your target, you can delete it to free up disk space.

In addition to Real-Time Explorer, you can use the new instrument object in the expanded MATLAB-based API to create applications in App Designer. With App Designer, you can drag and drop visual components and program them to create professional apps with MATLAB. For Simulink Real-Time, you can quickly build instrument panels or other apps for monitoring signals and tuning parameters with just a few lines of code. To get started, you can use a template application from the documentation.

Finally, as of R2020b, Simulink Real-Time no longer requires Simulink, Simulink Coder, and MATLAB Coder to develop apps or run scripts to interact with pre-built real-time applications. This will enable new workflows for test engineers who need to build apps, test benches, or other tooling to interact with pre-built real-time applications. That said, if you need to develop a model and build a real-time application, Simulink, MATLAB Coder, and Simulink Coder will still be required.

To get started in R2020b, you may want to try out several new capabilities, like the new instrument object for creating custom applications that use real-time signal data or improved signal logging capabilities with the new file log block. For additional information on this major update, please visit the Simulink Real-Time R2020b update page.