Hello Harry
Not sure what you mean by simulation output and what hardware/software and software architecture you are using for your project.
Usually you will use compactrio hardware and write FPGA VI and RT VI and also Windows vi if you want a user interface to monitor temporarily status of indicators or send some inputs to RT VI. So thats the first thing to think about and it is a lot of work to make a good system for such an application so start working hard from now I will suggest.
It is possible to test your FPGA vi once written in simulation mode by executing FPGA vi on simulation computer. This method only determines if there are no errors in code and I use it to save myself time taken by FPGA to compile code. You wont use it for simulating inputs and outputs on your hardware. To perform functionality testing on your rio platform e.g " Will I get expected output if the input was x?" You could use NI distributed Manager after you have written your FPGA code and compiled it. There are good tutorials on NI website on NI distributed manager.
There are also third party tools used to simulate and perform Cycle-Accurate Co-simulation using MentorGraphics ModelSim simulation package but you need to know VHDL for that. You really dont need it if all you want is do one project.
NI really supports university students working on the projects. Your best bit is to give a call to NI and tell them you want to do this project using NI hardware and you are considering rio platform. The sales engineer in your area could visit you and guide you through all steps and perhaps you might be lucky to get free training on NI FPGA and NI Real Time Application courses.
Hope it helps
