Abstract: To shorten the periods required for developing control algorithms, improve the reliability of controllers and simplify the modification of control algorithms, a DSP-based rapid control prototyping (RCP) system was designed and developed. The RCP system is composed of a hardware controller with TI F2812DSP embedded in it and an integrated software development environment provided by MATLAB/Simulink. Through the Real-Time Workshop function of MATLAB, users can directly generate executable codes from Simulink model and download them into the DSP controller for real-time control, thus reducing developers' heavy programming tasks and enhancing the efficiency of R & D. A real-time control experiment was done for the intelligent PD controller with neural network and feedforward compensation to demonstrate the validity of the system.