Low cost environment for rapid prototyping of control algorithms for mechatronic plants based on Microsoft Office Excel application

The paper presents a low cost rapid prototyping environment for control algorithm development based on Microsoft Excel program and a measurement and control board built on an ARM Cortex M core microcontroller. The solution is intended mainly for mechatronic devices. It provides tools for computer simulations and soft real time closed loop control experiments. An application to a fast and unstable mechatronic plant of an inverted pendulum on a cart is presented to show system capabilities.