Managing Blocks with Simulink

by F Marquez

Simulink is a block diagram environment for multidomain simulation and Model-Based Design. It supports system-level design, simulation, automatic code generation, and continuous test and verification of embedded systems. Simulink provides a graphical editor, customizable block libraries, and solvers for modeling and simulating dynamic systems. It is integrated with MATLAB(R), enabling you to incorporate MATLAB algorithms into models and export simulation results to MATLAB for further analysis. Simulink is a graphical modeling and simulation environment for dynamic systems. You can create block diagrams, where blocks represent parts of a system. A block can represent a physical component, a small system, or a function; an input/output relationship fully characterizes the block. When creating models, you need to be aware that Simulink blocks fall into two basic categories: nonvirtual blocks and virtual blocks. Nonvirtual blocks play an active role in the simulation of a system. If you add or remove a nonvirtual block, you change the model's behavior. Virtual blocks, by contrast, play no active role in the simulation; they help organize a model graphically. Some Simulink blocks are virtual in some circumstances and nonvirtual in others. Such blocks are called conditionally virtual blocks.Rotating moves block ports from the sides to top and bottom or the reverse, depending on the placement of the ports. The resulting positions of the block ports depend on the block port rotation type. Rotating can reposition the ports on some blocks to maintain left-to-right or top-to-bottom port numbering order. A block whose ports are reordered after a rotation have the default port rotation type. This policy helps to maintain the left-right and top-down block diagram orientation convention used in control system modeling applications. Blocks by default use this rotation policy.For many blocks whose signals carry data, Simulink can display signal values (block output) as port value labels (similar to tool tips) on the block diagram during and after a simulation. Port value labels display block output values when Simulink runs block output methods.During the updating phase of simulation, Simulink determines the order in which to invoke the block methods during simulation. This block invocation ordering is the sorted order. You cannot set this order, but you can assign priorities to nonvirtual blocks to indicate to Simulink their execution order relative to other blocks. Simulink tries to honor block priority settings, unless there is a conflict with data dependencies. To confirm the results of priorities that you have set, or to debug your model, display and review the sorted order of your nonvirtual blocks and subsystems.

396 pages, Paperback

Published April 6, 2019