Preface

This book will give you a complete understanding of the Simulink software. You will learn by example, going through the three main phases of Simulink development—modeling, simulating, and interfacing with the external world while developing a cruise controller for a real car.

While reading this book, you'll be given a clear, no-frills explanation of the main components of Simulink and how to use them in order to achieve the desired result. After having read this book, you will be able to develop, test, and deploy your models without any difficulty.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Simulink Facts, deals with the problems that arise while developing the software for the biggest manufacturing industries and how Simulink can cut down the total development time, from specifications to final implementation. You will understand where Simulink really shines and where it isn't worth the hassle.

Chapter 2, Creating a Model, deals with developing a very simple cruise controller model in order to get started quickly with Simulink and the MATLAB environment. Then you will be guided through the Simulink implementation of a real-world car to use with the previously developed cruise controller, thus introducing the usage of more complex blocks. You will understand how a model is developed and where to look for the appropriate blocks.

Chapter 3, Simulating a Model, deals with presenting the theory behind simulation: solvers, simulation times, and how to choose them. You will then simulate the models you already developed, learning what are the available sources and sinks blocks and when to use them in order to discover failures in your models and change some of the parameters you defined.

Chapter 4, Using the Model, guides you through the most powerful feature of Simulink—the ability to create your own blocks, also known as S-function development—after having learned how to develop and simulate a model. You will create a simple S-function that enables your cruise controller to drive an external application and receive feedback from it.

What you need for this book

You should have a working MATLAB installation with the Simulink package. While this book has been written using the 8.1 (R2013a) release, you aren't required to use this exact version, as there are only minor differences between one release and another; the basic workflow remains the same. But you'll need at least the 8.1 release to be able to run the provided code.

In order to develop and test S-functions, you should have a compiler supported by your MATLAB release.

Who this book is for

This book is aimed at undergraduate students, researchers, and engineers who need to have a quick and complete understanding of how Simulink works, including some of its most advanced features.

The reader should have basic knowledge of physics and C programming.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: While, to a certain degree, it is possible to spot the differences when saving models with the .mdl format.

A block of code is set as follows:

  int main()
{
  int u1, u2, y1;
  printf(""Enter two numbers\n"");
  scanf(""%d%d"", &u1, &u2);
  y1 = mul(u1, u2);
  printf(""Here''s your result,the operation done is a shining ''x''!\n%d\n"", y1);
     return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

  new_string = 'hello world!';
  new_number = 0.01;

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "From the MATLAB main window, click on the New button and select the Simulink Model option".

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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