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Test & Measurement
Description Topics
- Integrating Acquisition and Analysis
- Interfacing with External Devices
- Analyzing and Visualizing Data
- Developing Algorithms and Models
- Presenting and Reporting Results
Interfacing with External Devices
The MATLAB test and measurement tools combine hardware device connectivity with the analysis and visualization capabilities of MATLAB - all in a single environment. The MathWorks provides products that let you interface with a variety of industry-standard data acquisition devices and communication protocols.
With MATLAB and the Data Acquisition, Image Acquisition, and Instrument Control Toolboxes, you can:
- Interface with data and image acquisition boards to stream live, measured data directly into MATLAB
- Control instruments using GPIB, VISA, TCP/IP, and UDP communication protocols
- Use a single, consistent interface to a variety of devices, regardless of hardware manufacturer
- Call generic DLLs directly from MATLAB to interface with non-supported hardware
These tools let you move seamlessly between data collection and analysis, so you can generate real results, faster. They are ideal for a wide variety of applications that involve component or system-level testing.
"The [Data Acquisition] Toolbox is completely integrated with MATLAB, so data collection and processing are done within a single environment, using the MATLAB language. This approach favors applications that require significant post-processing and custom visualization."
Newman-Haas Racing Team
| MATLAB provides tools such as the Data Acquisition, Image Acquisition, and Instrument Control Toolboxes for interfacing with external hardware devices. Here, an oscilloscope was created using MATLAB and the Data Acquisition Toolbox to view and analyze data as it is being streamed live into MATLAB. Click on image to see enlarged view. |  |
Products for Interfacing with External Devices
Data Acquisition Toolbox
The Data Acquisition Toolbox lets you stream live, measured data directly into MATLAB for analysis and visualization. It provides a set of tools for controlling and communicating with data acquisition hardware from vendors such as:
- Agilent Technologies
- Keithley
- Measurement Computing Corporation (formerly ComputerBoards)
- National Instruments
- Any PC-compatible sound card
- The PC parallel port
In addition, the Data Acquisition Toolbox Adaptor Kit lets you build your own interface to data acquisition devices that are not currently supported.
Image Acquisition Toolbox
The Image Acquisition Toolbox lets you acquire images and video directly into MATLAB for processing and visualization. It provides a set of tools for controlling and communicating with image acquisition hardware, including:
- Analog and digital frame grabbers from Matrox and Data Translation
- Windows-compatible video-capture devices, such as USB and FireWire (IEEE-1394) scientific video cameras, as well as Web cameras, video capture boards, and DV camcorders
Instrument Control Toolbox
The Instrument Control Toolbox lets you control and communicate with instruments, via GPIB, VISA, TCP/IP, and UDP communication protocols, directly from MATLAB. The toolbox also provides intuitive interfaces for connecting to and communicating with your instrument. You can also use these interfaces to communicate with serial port devices.
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Interactive GUIs in the Instrument Control Toolbox let you control and communicate with external instruments. Here, the instrcreate and instrcomm interfaces are used to first establish the GPIB connection to the instrument, then a peak- to-peak voltage reading is taken from the Tektronix TDS 210 oscilloscope and read into MATLAB. | |
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MATLAB
MATLAB provides direct access to data from serial port (RS-232, RS-422, RS-485) connections as well as MATLAB formatted data files (MAT-files). MATLAB also lets you directly call generic DLLs for interfacing with hardware, calling Windows functions, and executing third-party libraries. In addition, you can call VXI PnP drivers and IVI-C drivers directly from the MATLAB environment.
MATLAB also includes built-in support for popular file formats, including scientific data formats, image file formats, and industry-standard formats, such as Excel. Additional functions perform ASCII and low-level binary I/O from M-file, C, and Fortran programs.
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