How to call a symbolic function from a Simulink's MATLAB Function block?

So I have this complicated interpolating symbolic function that is in my workspace that I am trying to call from my Simulink module to use, is that possible? If so, how can I do that?

Because currently what I am doing is that I saved that symbolic function in a .mat file and I am loading it in my Simulink module each time I would like to use it in my MATLAB Function block. But is there a way to load that symbolic function once to my matlab basic workspace, and then from it call my symbolic function in my MATLAB Function Block ?

An example of a symbolic function: F = @(x) x^2

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

An example of a symbolic function: F = @(x) x^2

No, as written that's an anonymous function not a symbolic function. Depending on how pedantic you want to be a symbolic function could be something like either g or f(x) in the code below:

syms x y f(x)
g = x.^2+y.^3

g = 

f(x) = sin(x+1)

f(x) = 

whos x y g f

  Name      Size            Bytes  Class     Attributes

  f         1x1                 8  symfun              
  g         1x1                 8  sym                 
  x         1x1                 8  sym                 
  y         1x1                 8  sym                 

If what you have is more like g or f the matlabFunctionBlock function may be of use to you. Use that function to generate the block to use in your model.

If that's not what you mean by "symbolic function" please show us exactly how you create your symbolic function.

[Ali Almakhmari]

Thank you so much for your reply. I hope you can help me further. And yes, I did mean anonymous functions. Attached is my complicated anonymous function (its 10 MB so I cannot upload it here, I uploaded it to google drive). My goal is to load this function once to my MATLAB workspace and then call it as many times as I want from my Simulink's MATLAB Function block. This is because if I use the load command in my MATLAB Function block in Simulink it will slow down the simulation VERY much.

Note that the way to use this anonymous function is by passing to it 6 different values and it will output to you 6 different values, for example: interpFcn([0.4,0.123,-0.34,10.12,13.4212,0.974])

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_dDyDOTnNdqWAT4v3Qtt8dNuHfLahwEx/view?usp=sharing

[Steven Lord]

If you have a 10 MB anonymous function, perhaps you should write it as a regular MATLAB function file instead.

If most of that is data used by the file, I'm not 100% certain but you may want to look at storing that data somewhere other than a MAT-file. This documentation page and this other documentation page may be of use in determining the right place to store that data for your MATLAB Function block to use.

[Ali Almakhmari]

I will try to look into the documentation pages you sent. But I dont think your first suggestion of writing it as a regular MATLAB function file is suitable because I do have that function file that generates that anonymous function for me, but it takes a long time to run. If you have any other suggestions let me know.