{"id":1099,"date":"2012-07-11T05:31:13","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T10:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/seth\/?p=1099"},"modified":"2012-07-11T05:31:13","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T10:31:13","slug":"my-first-debugging-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/2012\/07\/11\/my-first-debugging-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"My First Debugging Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seth sometimes tells me: Grab the low hanging fruit.<\/em> When debugging Simulink models, this means looking at the information easily available.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Here are the first three things I usually look at when I see unexpected results in a model.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Signal Dimensions<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

When dealing with matrices and vectors, I like to enable Port\/Signal Displays of Signal Dimensions<\/a> and Wide Nonscalar Lines<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Displaying<\/p>\r\n\r\n

With those options enabled, I can easily identify that the following state-space system has 2 inputs, 3 outputs and 4 states.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Example<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Data Types<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

In Simulink, you do not need to specify the data type of each signal. In most cases, you specify the data types of a few sources and the Simulink engine propagates it to other blocks. When a model gives unexpected results, it is always a good idea to display the Port Data Types<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Displaying<\/p>\r\n\r\n

For example, how could someone explain that Simulink thinks that 5 is equal to 1? Take a look at this model:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Displaying<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Sample Time Colors and Legend<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

You always want to confirm that your signals are at the rate you expect. For that, turn on the Sample Time Colors<\/a> and look at the Sample Time Legend<\/a>:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Sample<\/p>\r\n\r\n

I have seen too many cases like the following model, where the user designs a position controller to run at 4ms, but forgot to set the sample time of the driver block reading the position of the motor:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Color<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Now it's your turn<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

What are the things you usually look at when debugging a model? Leave a comment here<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seth sometimes tells me: Grab the low hanging fruit. When debugging Simulink models, this means looking at the information easily available.\r\n\r\nHere are the first three things I usually look at when... read more >><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[43,33],"tags":[276,277,60,278],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1123,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions\/1123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}