Generating Waveforms on Agilent MXG, ESG, PSG Signal Sources using MATLAB

MATLAB® example to download arbitrary waveform data on Agilent MXG, ESG, or PSG signal sources.

Description

MATLAB is a software environment and programming language with over 1,000,000 users and is used to generate arbitrary and standard waveforms, configure and control instruments, build automated test applications, and analyze and visualize data from other instruments. MATLAB only supports instrument communication when you use MATLAB with its Instrument Control Toolbox™.

This example uses MATLAB to generate an arbitrary waveform (IQ data), configure the instrument, download the waveform to the Agilent source, and instruct the instrument when to source the waveform.

To execute this example, type ‘Generate_Waveform_Agilent’ in the MATLAB command window. [Note: Change the IP address in the generate_agilent_waveform.m file to the IP address of the signal source.]

This MATLAB example has been tested on an N5182A MXG but should work on other Agilent signal sources including these MXG, ESG, and PSG models: E4428C,E4438C,N5181A,N5182A,N5183A,E8241A,E8244A,E8251A,E8254A,E8247C,E8257C, E8267C,E8257D,E8267D,E8663B,N8211A,N8212A.

To learn more about using MATLAB and Instrument Control Toolbox™ for configuring and controlling instruments, visit:
http://www.mathworks.com/products/instrument

To request a trial of MATLAB and/or Instrument Control Toolbox, visit http://www.mathworks.com/agilent/instrument/tryit.html

For additional information on using MATLAB with Agilent instruments, including MATLAB examples, demos, drivers, and videos, visit:
http://www.mathworks.com/agilent

• Required Products: Instrument Control Toolbox
• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.8 (R2009a)

[Marco]

Hi
I have tried this program in an Agilent Signal Generator E8267D.

However, the instrument displays an error message -275 wrong file name after the line 59:
binblockwrite(deviceObject,wave,'uint16',[':MEM:DATA "WFM1:' ArbFileName '",']);

[Nikola Stanchev]

Hi,

Thank you for this script. It is very useful except a bug that should be corrected.
I have formatted/scaled waveform by using this script. I was successful to download it to Agilent Signal generator PSG E8267D.

Unfortunately, the PSG output signal (with ARB waveform modulation) was not as suppose to be. I expected to see burst spread spectrum signal but I've got flat signal with a few dB variations.

After a few hours investigation of the problem I found that the cause is the use of Two's complement formatting in the Matlab code.

wave = uint16(mod(modval + wave, modval));

I've got the correct PSG's output signal without 2's complement formatting.

If you go to the Agilent PSG programming guide (E8251-90255) you can see the following sentence "...Data must be in signed, 2’s complement (binary) format..." (very interesting combination, isn't it?)
There is no use of 2's complement formatting in the attached examples script in C/C++.

Best regards,
Nikola

[Cheah Wei Leow]

MATLAB_WFM is it a file?