Specify Fixed-Point Data Types
Simulink® allows you to create models that use fixed-point numbers to represent signals and parameter values. Use of fixed-point data can reduce the memory requirements and increase the speed of code generated from a model.
To execute a model that uses fixed-point numbers, you must have the Fixed-Point Designer™ product installed on your system. Specifically, you must have the product to:
Update a Simulink diagram (Ctrl+D) containing fixed-point data types
Run a model containing fixed-point data types
Generate code from a model containing fixed-point data types
Log the minimum and maximum values produced by a simulation
Automatically scale the output of a model using the autoscaling tool
If the Fixed-Point Designer product is not installed on your system, you can execute a fixed-point model as a floating-point model by enabling automatic conversion of fixed-point data to floating-point data during simulation. See Overriding Fixed-Point Specifications for details.
If you do not have the Fixed-Point Designer product installed and do not enable automatic conversion of fixed-point to floating-point data, an error occurs if you try to execute a fixed-point model.
Note
You do not need the Fixed-Point Designer product to edit a model containing fixed-point blocks, or to use the Data Type Assistant to specify fixed-point data types, as described in Specifying a Fixed-Point Data Type.
Fixed-point data types that resolve to a base integer type do
not require a Fixed-Point Designer license. For example, a block
or signal that specifies a data type of fixdt(1,8,0)
,
which is equivalent to the int8
built-in type will
not check out a Fixed-Point Designer license.
Overriding Fixed-Point Specifications
Most of the functionality in the Fixed-Point Tool is for use with Fixed-Point Designer. However, even if you do not have Fixed-Point Designer, you can configure data type override settings to simulate a model that specifies fixed-point data types. In this mode, Simulink temporarily overrides fixed-point data types with floating-point data types when simulating the model.
Note
If you use fi (Fixed-Point Designer) objects or embedded numeric data types in your model or workspace, you might introduce fixed-point data types into your model. You can set fipref (Fixed-Point Designer) to prevent the checkout of a Fixed-Point Designer license.
To simulate a model without using Fixed-Point Designer, enter the following at the command line.
set_param(gcs, 'DataTypeOverride', 'Double', ... 'DataTypeOverrideAppliesTo', 'AllNumericTypes')
If you use fi
objects or embedded numeric data types in your
model, set the fipref
DataTypeOverride
property to TrueDoubles
or
TrueSingles
(to be consistent with the model-wide data type
override setting) and the DataTypeOverrideAppliesTo
property to
All numeric types
.
For example, at the MATLAB® command line, enter:
p = fipref('DataTypeOverride', 'TrueDoubles', ... 'DataTypeOverrideAppliesTo', 'AllNumericTypes');