Arduino Modelling in MATLAB-Simulink

MATLAB-Simulink is a data flow graphical programming language tool for modeling and simulating multi-domain systems. It is developed and owned by MathWorks Inc. In other words it is a block diagram environment for simulating various systems from different domains.

The recent versions of SIMULINK have support package for Arduino (UNO, Mega2560, etc.), BeagleBone, etc. This has made it easier to simulate and upload the designs directly to the board.

In this project, we’ll use the SIMULINK tool to blink an LED connected to our Arduino UNO.

It is a block diagram based tool in which there’s no requirement to write a code in C or so, rather the block diagram model is directly converted and uploaded to the board by MATLAB tools. To begin with, we will generate an LED Blink code and run it on Arduino-UNO.

But Before getting to it, you need to check for some pre-requisites. Your computer must have Matlab-R2013 or above, (This tutorial is on MATLAB-R2014a). If you have student version of MATLAB -2013 or 2014, it will do.

Now we need to install the Arduino Support Package from the official MathWorks site,

After being done with above steps, let us start creating our system design:

When you open MATLAB, a screen appears which has several windows embedded in it, viz. Command window, etc. Select SIMULINK library from the Menu Bar in the main window.

You will see a pop-up screen as follows:

Screenshot of Simulink Library in Matlab

Go to ‘Simulink Support Package for Arduino’ and you will see a screen as above.

Contd..

Select Digital Output from the list to control the LED. Right Click on it and select ‘Add to a new model’.

Screenshot of selecting Digital Output on Simulink

After this you will see a Simulink model window as shown below:

Screenshot of Simulink Model on Matlab

‘Digital Pin 9’ is declared as OUTPUT. You can change the Pin configuration by double clicking on the same. On double click a pop-up window appears as shown here:

Screenshot of Pin Configuration window on Simulink

After this, we need to generate a pulse, which will turn our LED ON and OFF. To get this, again click on Simulink Library. Go to ‘Sources’ and select Pulse Generator from the list, and add it to the Model by a right click on it.

Screenshot of adding pulse generator on Simulink

Connect both blocks with each other. Now Double click on ‘Pulse Generator’ to edit its properties. You can have the delay, sample time, etc., of your own choice. As an example, you can set the ones shown below:

Screenshot of Pulse Generator properties on Simulink

After having completed above steps, we will set the ‘Target Hardware’ and set its properties. Go to ‘Tools’ from the Menu Bar, and select ‘Run on Target Hardware’, a pop-up window will appear, as shown below:

Screenshot of selecting Target Hardware on Simulink

Select the Target Hardware (say Arduino UNO) and choose the COM Port. You can select it manually if it doesn’t work automatically.

Screenshot of selecting Arduino Uno as Target Hardware on Simulink

Select ‘Apply’ and click OK. Congratulations…!!!

We are just one step away. On the menu bar, select the option ‘Deploy to Hardware’.

If you have correctly selected the hardware as well as the COM ports and have correctly installed Support Packages, the hardware will run in the first go.

If it shows errors, re-check the COM port from Device Manager->Ports.

As an extension to the above system, you can add Input Devices, add logic to your design or design your first Line Follower Robot in Simulink..!!!