Data Acquisition Toolbox 2.16

Performing Data Acquisition in Simulink

Data Acquisition Toolbox provides Simulink blocks for acquiring live or measured data directly into your models, or configuring hardware interfaced to data acquisition devices.

These blocks enable you to quickly evaluate the response of your Simulink models and algorithms with real-world data, instead of designing systems against static data sets, such as those saved in files. You can also use these blocks to verify and validate your models against live, measured data as part of the system development process.

Data Acquisition Toolbox provides four Simulink blocks:

• Analog Input - Acquire data from analog channels
• Analog Output - Output data to analog channels
• Digital Input - Acquire the latest set of values from digital lines
• Digital Output - Output data to digital lines

The output blocks let you configure hardware from your Simulink models, including instructing hardware to send data. The input blocks enable you to acquire live data from hardware and incorporate that data directly into your models.

Each block provides a dialog box that enables you to configure parameters including the device type, channels, and lines. The analog blocks also enable you to configure other relevant parameters such as asynchronous vs. synchronous acquisition, the sample rate, block size, and data type. You can connect your Simulink model to a broad range of data acquisition hardware, and later change devices with minimal changes to your model. Using Simulink with Data Acquisition Toolbox enables system simulation and design with live data in a single software environment.

Analog Input block dialog box. Graphically configure parameters such as acquisition mode, device type, and sample rate. 

Acquiring live analog data directly into a Simulink model using the Analog Input block. In this example, the data acquisition device is a Windows sound card, and the model determines the spectral content of a signal. By using live data, you can quickly try different data permutations and make adjustments your Simulink model.