A low-cost, easy-to-use, real-time power system simulator

We present the design rationale and basic workings of a low-cost, easy-to-use power system simulator developed to support investigations into human interface design for a hydropower plant. The power system simulator is based on three important components: models of power system components, a data repository, and human interface elements. Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) allows simulator components to communicate with each other within the simulator. To construct the modules of the simulator we have combined the advantages of commercial software such as Matlab/Simulink, ActiveX Control, Visual Basic and Excel and integrated them in the simulator. An important advantage of our approach is that further components of the simulator now can be developed independently. An initial assessment of the simulator indicates it is fit for intended purpose.

A real-time asymmetric multiprocessor-reconfigurable system-on-chip architecture

We propose an asymmetric multi-processor SoC architecture, featuring a master CPU running uClinux, and multiple loosely-coupled slave CPUs running real-time threads assigned by the master CPU. Real-time SoC architectures often demand a compromise between a generic platform for different applications, and application-specific customizations to achieve performance requirements. Our proposed architecture offers a generic platform running a conventional embedded operating system providing a traditional software-oriented development approach, while multiple slave CPUs act as a dedicated independent real-time threads execution unit running in parallel of master CPU to achieve performance requirements. In this paper, the architecture is described, including the application / threading development environment. The performance of the architecture with several standard benchmark routines is also analysed.