To Instrument

Send simulation data to instrument

Library

Instrument Control Toolbox

Description

The To Instrument block configures and opens an interface to an instrument, initializes the instrument, and sends data to the instrument. The configuration and initialization happen at the start of the model execution. The block sends data to the instrument during model run time.

The block has no output ports. The block has one input port corresponding to the data sent to the instrument. This data type must be double precision.

Note

The To Instrument block can be used with these interfaces: VISA, GPIB, Serial, TCP/IP, and UDP. It is not supported on these interfaces: SPI, I2C, and Bluetooth.

Other Supported Features

This block supports the use of Simulink^® Accelerator™ mode, but not Rapid Accelerator or code generation.
The block supports the use of model referencing, so that your model can include other Simulink models as modular components.

For more information on these features, see the Simulink documentation.

Parameters

Block sample time: The Block sample time parameter is the only setting outside of the dialog box tabs. The default value of -1 sets the block to inherit timing. A positive value is used as the sample period.

Hardware Configuration Tab

The Hardware Configuration tab is where you define the settings for communications with your instrument. You have two choices about establishing an interface:

Specify a new hardware configuration.
Use an interface object from the MATLAB^® workspace.

The following figure shows the Hardware Configuration tab set to specify a new hardware configuration using a serial port interface.

Because some parameters apply to multiple interface types, they appear here in alphabetical order.

Baudrate: The rate at which bits are transmitted for the serial or VISA serial interface.
Board index: The index of the board used for GPIB, VISA GPIB, VISA TCPIP, or VISA USB interface to the instrument. See BoardIndex property for more information.
Board vendor: The vendor of the GPIB board used for the interface to the instrument. Your choices are Keysight™ (formerly Agilent^®), ICS Electronics™, Measurement Computing™ (MCC), and National Instruments^®.
Chassis index: The index number of the VXI chassis. Used for VISA VXI and VISA VXI-GPIB interface types.
Buffer size: The total number of bytes that can be stored in the software output buffer during a read operation.
Interface: Select the type of hardware interface to the instrument. Your options are those interfaces supported by the Instrument Control Toolbox™ software. The previous figure shows a configuration for a serial port interface.
Logical address: The logical address of the VXI instrument. Used for VISA VXI and VISA VXI-GPIB interface types.
Manufacturer ID: The manufacturer ID of the VISA USB instrument defined as a character vector. See ManufacturerID property for more information.
Model code: The model code of the VISA USB instrument defined as a character vector. See ModelCode property for more information.
Port: The port for the serial interface: COM1, COM2, etc.
Primary address: The primary address of the instrument on the GPIB.
Remote host: The host name or IP address of the instrument. Used for UDP, TCPIP, or VISA TCPIP interface types.
Remote port: The port on the instrument or remote host used for communication. Used for UDP, TCPIP, or VISA TCPIP interface types.
Secondary address: The secondary address of the instrument on the GPIB.
Serial number: The serial number of the VISA USB instrument defined as a character vector. See SerialNumber property for more information.
Timeout: Time in seconds, allowed to complete the query operation.
VISA vendor: The vendor of the VISA instrument used for any of the VISA interface types. Your choices are Keysight (formerly Agilent), National Instruments, and Tektronix^®.
Use interface object from MATLAB workspace: Select this option to use an interface object from the MATLAB workspace.
Workspace object: Enter the object name that you want to use from the MATLAB workspace.

Instrument Initialization Tab

The Instrument Initialization tab is where you define what happens when you first open your connection to the instrument.

None: The default initialization option is none.
Send string: A string sent to the instrument as an instrument command to initialize the instrument or set it up in a known state.
Execute function: Any function that has as its only argument the interface object representing the instrument. You can write this function to include several instrument commands and initialization data.

Send Tab

The Send tab is where you define the optional command sent to the instrument and the format of the sent data.

Command

This is the command that is sent to the instrument with the Simulink data. This command is optional—if you leave this field blank, the Simulink data is sent to the instrument without any prefix or additional formatting.

Output format

Your options are ASCII, Binary, or Binblock (binary block — the binblock format is described in the binblockwrite function reference page).

ASCII format string

Available only when the format is ASCII, this defines the format string for the data. For a list of formats, see the fprintf function.

Precision

Used for binary or binblock format. Your options are:

8-bit integer (default)
16-bit integer
32-bit integer
8-bit unsigned integer
16-bit unsigned integer
32-bit unsigned integer
32-bit float
64-bit float

Byte order

When using binary or binblock format with more than 8 bits, you can specify the instrument's byte order for the data. Your options are Big Endian or Little Endian.

Tip

Hardware information shown in the dialog box is determined and cached when you first open the dialog box. To refresh the display with new values, restart MATLAB.