Abstract
Advanced digital computer technology enables the computer-based controllers to replace the traditional analog controllers used in factory automations. This replacement, however, brings up the side effects caused by the quantization error and non-real-time execution of control software. This paper describes the structure of real-time simulator and controller that can be used for design and verification of real-time digital controllers. The virtual machine concept adopted by the proposed real-time simulator makes the proposed simulator be independent from the specific hardware platforms. The proposed system can also be used in the loosely coupled distributed environments connected through local area network using real-time message passing algorithm and virtual data table based on the shared memory mechanism.