A comparison of software engines for simulation of closed-loop control systems

A wide array of control system design and simulation software engines is available in market. It includes MATLAB-Simulink, LabVIEW, Maple-MapleSim, Scilab-Scicos, VisSim and Mathematica-Control Professional Suite (CPS). Among all of them MATLAB-Simulink is dominant and widely used software engine. The main aim of this study is to implement different state space control methods for non-linear Furuta pendulum system in each one of them and to compare performance against MATLAB-Simulink. Different parameters like learning curve, interoperability, flexibility, control design tools, documentation and tech support are considered for efficiency comparison. It is shown that MapleSim has multi-body intuitive physical modeling (acausal) approach faster than Simulink with unique control animation feature. It is found that MapleSim has the ability to generate differential equations from acausal modeling. It was verified that differential equations generated by MapleSim were similar to original equations. Scilab-Scicos is cost-efficient being open source engine with all control design and simulation capability similar to Matlab-Simulink. LabVIEW has better front end and back end for control design simulation at the cost of steep learning curve. VisSim has complete symbolic modeling approach with great flexibility and ease of learning. Mathematica\u27s Control System Professional does not have symbolic modeling capability. It is observed that CPS has a cumbersome approach for modeling non linear systems