Add to ORKGThe aim of this paper is to present a flexible and versatile environment for developing, analyzing and prototyping data communication and signal processing systems. This environment is based on the Matlab/Simulink tools and a reconfigurable hardware platform that includes reprogrammable and digital processing circuits. The hardware platform communicates with the Matlab workspace via a dynamic data exchange and synchronization mechanism, which enables the interaction between the model running on the Matlab /Simulink and the hardware/software modules developed by the user. This development environment provides a flexible test-bench that facilitates the gradual implementation of a high-level system model to an actual prototype