MATLAB a Arduino (Simulink)

2. Contents
Arduino (From Arduino Website)
MATLAB
Getting started with Arduino and MATLAB
Checking communication between Arduino and MATLAB:
Creating a GUI function to Control an LED
RGB LED Color Mixing
Control a Servo Motor
DC Motor Control
Plotting Graph using Temperature data
Contact and app inventor files.

5. Arduino (From Arduino Website)
Arduino is an open-source prototyping platform based on easy-to-use hardware and
software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a
button, or a Twitter message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an
LED, publishing something online. You can tell your board what to do by sending a set of
instructions to the microcontroller on the board. To do so you use the Arduino
programming language (based onWiring), and the Arduino Software (IDE),based
on Processing.
Over the years Arduino has been the brain of thousands of projects, from everyday objects
to complex scientific instruments. A worldwide community of makers - students,
hobbyists, artists, programmers, and professionals - has gathered around this open-source
platform, their contributions have added up to an incredible amount of accessible
knowledge that can be of great help to novices and experts alike.
Arduino was born at the IvreaInteraction Design Institute as an easy tool for fast
prototyping, aimed at students without a background in electronics and programming. As
soon as it reached a wider community, the Arduino board started changing to adapt to new
needs and challenges, differentiating its offer from simple 8-bit boards to products
for IoT applications, wearable, 3D printing, and embedded environments. All Arduino
boards are completely open-source, empowering users to build them independently and
eventually adapt them to their particular needs. The software, too, is open-source, and it is
growing through the contributions of users worldwide.

6. MATLAB
MATLAB is a high-performance language for technical computing. It integrates
computation, visualization, and programming in an easy-to-use environment where
problems and solutions are expressed in familiar mathematical notation. Typical uses
include:
Math and computation
Algorithm development
Modeling, simulation, and prototyping
Data analysis, exploration, and visualization
Scientific and engineering graphics
Application development, including Graphical User Interface building
MATLAB supports low cost hardware system, one of the system is Arduino where
you can connect an Arduino with MATLAB and start to work with on it, one of the
advantage of Arduino is, and it is a low cost hardware which can be used with
MATLAB to acquire data and process data. Throughout this book you will know
how to create a GUI in MATLAB to control Arduino.

8. Getting started with Arduino and MATLAB
To use Arduino with MATLAB, we need a support package that needs to be installed on
the Arduino side to make communication with Arduino board. This is a one-time
installation and you also need MATLAB registered email id and password to complete the
installation process. If you have not registered yet, register in order to download the
support software.
You need to have your matlab installed on your system in order to continue the below
steps, make sure you have installed MATLAB.
1) Setup MATLAB and Simulink support package For Arduino.
Start your MATLAB, you can do this by double clicking MATLAB short cut on
your desktop or search for MATLAB on your Programs.
2) Open MATLAB and click the Add-Ons drop down menu on the top right of the
MATLAB window and select Get Hardware Support Packages in the drop down
menu to start the installation process.
3) Select install from internet as the source for installing the support package

9. 4) Select Arduino from a list of support packages
Click next and log into your Mathworks account. If you don’t have a MathWorks account,
you can create one during the installation process.

10. Continue and Complete the Installation
Accept the license agreement on the next screen and click Next through the following
screens to finish the installation for both MATLAB and Simulink Support Package for
Arduino.
If everything goes well you will see the screenshots that included above in this page, if
you are not seeing the screen like above check your internet connectivity and still the
problem persist you can disable your firewall and your antivirus till the installation

11. process get complete, sometime firewall may block the MATLAB to connecting to the
server for downloading the required files.
You should see the above progress bar to get confirmation that the installation process is
going smooth and downloaded has completed and installation is taking place. It will take
some time to complete the installation process and it is completely depend on your
Internet speed, It took me 1 hour to complete the whole process, so be patience during the
installation process don’t click cancel while downloading, sit and relax still the process
gets over. Once the process completes restart your MATLAB and get ready for your first
program.
Check the video tutorial in the link on how to setup the required files to make it work

13. Checking communication between Arduino and MATLAB:
In order to check communication between Arduino and MATLAB you need to connect
your Arduino device to MATLAB, you can use any of the Arduino device, for this
example I am using the popular device from Arduino family, Arduino Uno.
If you own an original Arduino you can type a = arduino in the matlab command window.
If you installed the software for Arduino in the MATLAB and typed the above command
you will be returned with the arduino properties of your Arduino hardware.
If you are using Arduino clone, sometime MATLAB finds difficult to find the properties
of your Arduino hardware, if it’s not returned with any properties type the following
command,
a = arduino(‘COM3’,‘Uno’)
If you are connecting your Arduino on a Mac
Connect to an Arduino Uno on port devtty.usbmodem1421.
a = arduino(‘/dev/tty.usbmodem1421’,‘Uno’)
If all the above steps failed make sure you are not using your Arduino with any other IDE
or reconnect your Arduino hardware and also upload blink example sketch from Arduino
IDE examples and make sure it is connecting to Arduino IDE before coming to a
conclusion that it is not working with MATLAB.

14. Make sure to delete the variable
in the workspace, this may sometime
prevent us to not use arduino hardware
with other programs.

16. Creating a GUI function to Control an LED
In this lesson you will learn how to create GUI (Graphical User Interface) in MATLAB
to control an LED connected to Arduino Uno.
Things you needed to make this tutorial.
1. Arduino Uno or any other type of Arduino hardware
2. An LED
3. A 220 ohm resistor.
If you want to try this tutorial with the inbuilt LED connected to pin number 13
you don’t need LED or resistor to test this tutorial.
Connect LED to the 3rd
pin of Arduino in between LED and Arduino Pin connect a 220
ohm resistor as shown in above, connect the other end of LED to Ground pin of Arduino.
On the Top left side of MATLAB Home tab click on the + sign.
Select Graphical User Interface from the + sign.

17. You also open the Graphical User Interface creator by typing “guide “in the command
window of MATLAB.
Select Blank GUI from GUIDE templates and click ok.

18. Drag and drop the push button available at the left side of the guide window,
and resize to the desired length you want. Do the same for another button.
One button is for turn on the LED and another push button is for Turn off the
LED.
Right click on one of the button and select property inspector

19. In the property inspector window change the background color to any of your desired
color it doesn’t mean you should change button color, but changing the color of the button
will differentiate it from other button.

20. Scroll down the property inspector and
change the string name , as this button is
going to be used for turning on the LED I
renamed the string to ON, you can type any
of your desired name to it and also take a
note of the Tag name that particular button
associated with. Follow the same procedure
for the second button and change the color to
RED and change the string text to OFF, click
on the green play button at the top of GUI file that you have created it will prompt you to
save your file and save your file, type the name you wanted to call your first project and
save it in safe place that you will not accidentally delete it in the future.
GUI generates two files,
You can see that files on the current folder on the left side of the matlab window. The file
ending with fig contains the layout information and the file ending with .m contains the
implementation code. When you save your GUI file the .m file will be automatically open
in your MATLAB window like the one below. This file contains automatically generated
code and space for us to add custom code to run when controls are selected, we have to
add custom code for when turning on the button what should the function do and when we

21. select the turn off button what it should do? We have to specify such things on our custom
code. The custom code is also known as the call back function.
Navigate to the function varargout to the end of this function add clear all; and declare a
variable for Arduino hardware.
Before adding custom code
After adding custom code
Clear all; command help us to clear all function that is currently accessing Arduino from
MATLAB. Declaring a global variable “a” as this variable will using in the functions
inside other code, assigning global variable to the Arduino hardware.
After adding the custom function like the one attached in the above screen navigate to the
button function, now we going to add custom function to the first button, when we push
the first button what function MATLAB has to do with Arduino hardware has to define in
the pushbutton1 function.
Before adding custom command;

22. After
adding
custom
command:
In the above custom command, calling the global variable which holds the Arduino
hardware and the function writeDigitalPin helps to turn on or turn off the LED based on
the value we applying to the function (a, ‘D3’, 1) “a” is the Arduino hardware and ‘D3’ is
the pin we have connected the LED and ‘1’ will make the pin to go high.
Now we have to add custom function to the second button, we have to add the same
command as what we have added to the first button, instead of the value ‘1’ for the second
button value should be changed to ‘0’.
Before adding custom command to function pushbutton2
After adding custom command to function pushbutton2
If you planning to control the inbuilt LED change the digital pin from ‘D3’ to ‘D13’. Save
the file and hit the run, you can find the run in the Editor tab.
Make sure you have connected your Arduino to your Laptop or PC before hit the run
button.
When you hit the run , it will take few seconds to establish communication with Arduino,
you can check at the button of the screen there it will be display as busy wait till the busy

23. status to fade away, if you give any control during the busy status you may experience
some errors.
Check out the Video tutorial of the same in this link here

25. RGB LED Color Mixing
In this chapter you will learn how to create slider functions in MATLAB GUI and
control an RGB LED connected to the Arduino Uno, RGB LED has connected to PWM
pins of Arduino, which can be controlled from MATLAB using PWM write function using
the slider.
Parts needed for this tutorial:
1) Arduino Uno.
2) Common cathode RGB LED (can use common anode too)
3) 3x 220 ohm Resistor and connecting wires.
Connect Green pin of RGB LED to 9th
pin of Arduino, Blue pin of RGB LED to
10th
pin of Arduino, Red pin of RGB LED to 11th
pin of Arduino, and connect the
common ground pin to GND of Arduino, in case of common anode connect pin to
5V. Make sure to connect a resistor between LED pin and Arduino to protect the
LED.
Start MATLAB and type ‘guide’ in command window, and select blank GUI. Click on the
Slider from the pallet on the GUI window.

26. Pick and drop the slider into the GUI window, drag and drop another two slider into the
GUI in total of 3 sliders. Resize the sliders to make it fit into the window.
Right Click on the first Slider and select Property Inspector, change the background color
to red and change the Max value to 5, leave the minimum value as same as 0.
Right click on the Second slider and change the color to green and also change the
maximum value to 5, do the same for the third slider change the color to blue and also
change the maximum value to 5.

27. Click on the run button from the GUI window which will ask to save the file, rename the
file and save it.
Now move to the .M file which has opened now in MATLAB window to add call back
functions to the sliders.
Find the function varargout in the .m file and replace the code with clear all; and declare a
global variable and assign Arduino hardware to the global variable.
Before adding custom command.
After adding custom command

28. Now we will add command to the first slider, when we move the first slider, it should
change the PWM level in the pin 11, as we assigned the first slider red color and
connected Red pin of RGB LED to 11th
pin, we going to control the PWM of 11th
pin.
Before adding custom command for the first slider.
After adding custom command for the first slider.
Get (hObject, ‘Value’) command will return the current value of the slider, the value
extracted using this command is stored in the variable b;
writePWMVoltage command used for writing PWM function in the Arduino hardware
from MATLAB.
When the slider is changed, slider current value will be stored in the variable ‘b’ the value
changes from 0 to 5, that is the accepted PWM change in MATLAB, in arduino this
change from 0 to 255, as the RED LED has connected to 11 digital pin and also the PWM
pin whenever the slider changes, current PWM voltage will be applied to the 11th
pin.
Same steps have to carried for the other two sliders, change the variables and copy paste
the code which will make the work simpler.
Before adding custom command for the second slider.

29. After adding custom command for the second slider.
Here the Digital pin 9 used for second Slider as the Green pin of RGB LED has connected
to the 9th
pin, it has changed to ‘D9’ in the custom command. Here a new variable has
introduced to hold the value when the slider changes.
Before adding custom command for the Third slider.
Before adding custom command for the Third slider.
Make all the changes to the .m file and add the necessary call back function to make
things work when the slider position changes in the MATLAB GUI window.
This tutorial can be followed as a video tutorial here
Make sure you are connecting the correct color pin and selecting the corresponding pin
when changing the custom command.

31. Control a Servo Motor
In this chapter you will learn how to control a Servo motor using MATLAB GUI
function, as we already learnt how to make a slider in the previous chapter, the same
concept we going to implement in this chapter, we going to use the slider and move the
servo motor position when we move the slider.
Parts needed for this tutorial
1) Arduino Uno
2) Many servo ( for this tutorial I am using only 2)
3) External power jack
Make sure you are connecting external power supply for this tutorial when you are
using servo motor with arduino , Servo consume more power which cannot be
supplied from the USB , it is must to connect to external power for running
smooth.
Start MATLAB, type guide in the command window, and select blank GUI, Pick and place
slider into the GUI window as like the same way did in the last chapter No need to change
any values for the Slider function when using to control Servo motor.

32. Save the file and move to add custom command on .m file on the MATLAB window. I
have connected Servo motors to 3rd
and 6th
pin of Arduino. When I change the first slider
servo connected to the 3rd
pin should respond when I move the second slider servo
connected to the 6th
pin should move for the slider position.
Find the function varargout in the .m file and replace the code with clear all; and declare a
global variable and assign Arduino hardware to the global variable.
Before adding custom command.
After adding custom command.
When the Slider 1 changes we have to write a command to move the servo position
accordingly to the Slider change.
Before adding custom command to slider 1 function
After adding custom command to slider 1 function

33. The above custom command will get the value of the current slider position and stores into
the variable b; and we are introducing another variable which assign the function that
servo has attached to the Digital pin 3. Whenever Slider position changes from 0 to 1,
Servo motor connected to the pin number 3 will move accordingly, continue the same for
other servo attached to the pin number 6.
Before adding custom command to slider 2 function
After adding custom command to slider 2 function
Save the file and run the function, make sure you properly connected your Arduino board
to your PC or laptop before executing the program.
You can also find the Video tutorial for this chapter here

35. DC Motor Control
In this chapter you will learn about how to control a DC motor from MATLAB, For DC
Motor control we going to use a Motor driver called L293D which is very simple H-bridge
used for controlling motor in both direction, these can control 2 motors for this tutorial we
going to concentrate on controlling a single motor.
Parts required for this tutorial
1) Arduino hardware any Arduino device can be used for this.
2) Toy DC Motor, you can also use any other type, the reason I am using a toy DC

36. motor is it consumes less power compare to the other Gear Motors
3) L293D Motor driver or any other Motor driver
4) Connecting wires.
L293D pin out
Enable pin of L293d connected to 9th
pin
of arduino which is the pwm pin, by
applying PWM voltage to the Enable pin
speed of the Motor can be controlled,
Input 1 is connected to the 7th
pin of
Arduino and Input 2 is connected to 6th
pin of Arduino, Output1 and Output2 pins
are connected to the Motor.
Logic behind L293D Motor Driver
Clockwise Direction 7th
pin (High) 6th
pin (Low)
Anticlockwise Direction 7th
pin (Low) 6th
pin (High)
STOP 7th
pin (Low) 6th
pin (Low)
STOP 7th
pin (High) 7th
pin (High)
In the MATLAB GUI we create 3 push buttons, one for rotating the motor to
clockwise another button to rotate in anticlockwise and the last one is to stop the
motor, and also a slider to control the speed of the motor, and last a text edit to
display the current speed of the motor.
When we press push button 1, on the custom command function we have write
High to pin 7 and low to pin 6.
When we press push button 2, on the custom command function we have to write
Low to pin 7 and High to pin 6.
When we press push button 3, on the custom command function we have to write
Low to pin 7 and Low to pin 6.

37. When we move the Slider the current position of the slider has to apply to the pin
number 9, as the PWM voltage varies from 0 to 5v, we need to set the Slider Max
value to 5 in this case, and when we move the slider we can display the slider value
in the edit text, as the slider moves from 0 to 5, we can multiply these value with
20 when displaying in the Edit text.
Create a GUI function like the one shown in the Screenshot below, combine push
button and Slider as we have seen how to create this in the previous chapters.
Right click on the slider and select property inspector and change the maximum
value to 5 instead of 1, you also need to pick and place edit text from the pallet to
display speed of the motor, and also right click on the push buttons and change the
string and color of the buttons as you wish. Save the file and move to .m file at the
MATLAB window.
Add commands like clear all; declare global variable and assign Arduino hardware

38. to the global variable, in the function varargout.
On the call back function for the push button 1 add the following code , call global
a; which holds the Arduino hardware, and Make the digital pin 6 to Low and 7th
pin
to High to rotate in Clockwise direction.
On the call back function for the push button 2 add the following code , call global
a; which holds the Arduino hardware, and Make the digital pin 6 to High and 7th
pin to Low to rotate in Anti-Clockwise direction.
On the call back function for the push button 3 add the following code , call global
a; which holds the Arduino hardware, and Make the digital pin 6 to Low and 7th
pin
to Low to rotate in Anti-Clockwise direction.

39. On the slider function call back we need to edit more codes, firstly we have to store
the slider value to a variable, on the function screenshot below, the variable slider
is used for storing the data return from the slider movement, and the slider variable
is multiplied by 20, when the slider move the maximum position its value will be 5
and if its multiplied by 20 the output will be 100, the final multiplied value will be
displayed In the edit text.
Function set(handles.edit1,‘String’, num2str(slider1))
The above function will display the slider1 data into edit text, it can only display
string value so it should be converted from number to string before displaying the
data.
Edit the call back function in the slider as given in the screenshot below
Save the function and run the program, if there is no movement in the motor, check the
connection between motor and motor driver. If still there is no movement connect an
external power which will solve the problem if the arduino not supplying much power
required by the motor this conditions may occur.
The same example can be viewed as video tutorial here

41. Plotting Graph using Temperature data
In this chapter you will learn about plotting graph using Temperature sensor, LM35
temperature sensor is used for this tutorial, LM35 sensor connected to analog pin of
Arduino, we acquire analog data from Arduino and doing some calculation with the data
return current temperature value, which can be plotted against number of count in the
loop.
Parts required for this tutorial
1) Arduino Uno or Mega or any other type of Arduino
2) LM35 temperature sensor or any other type ( if you are using other type of
sensor make sure you are also editing the value with the analog value)
3) Connecting wires.
Connect the output of LM35 sensor to A0 pin of Arduino, the function is very simple
acquiring analog data and doing some calculation with it (based on the LM35 datasheet)
We going to create 3 functions here one is for plotting the data another one is for
displaying the current temperature value and a push button for starting the program, when
you press the push button it will acquire 100 samples from Arduino, if you want more
sample you can edit by changing the loop.

42. Open MATLAB and type ‘guide’ in the command window, select blank GUI and axes
from the pallet and resize to the required size. Drag and drop a push button from the pallet
and also edit text and arrange in it in the GUI window.
Save the file and move on to .m file the MATLAB window.
Add commands like clear all; declare global variable and assign Arduino hardware
to the global variable, in the function varargout.
When you click the pushbutton MATLAB should acquire 100 sample data and process it
and plot graph and display the temperature data into edit text. All the function is on the
pushbutton side so we need to enter custom command on the pushbutton call back
function.

43. Update the custom command in the pushbutton 1 callback function and save the program.
You can also check the video tutorial of this here

44. Contact and app inventor files.
For suggestions and queries you can always mail me at jayakumarmagesh@gmail.com
For all the code and necessary documents for this book please click here