Supervisor: Arie Nakhmani

Students: Eli Tsiben & Guy Dor Lederfein

Semester: Spring 2011

Scilab - a good MATLAB alternative?

Contents

Background Overall comparison

Simulink vs. XcosInterface with DAQ cardVideo Tracking

Conclusions Future Development

MATLAB Various uses in engineering, science,

and economics Matrices are the main data type High cost Closed source Developed for over 30 years

Scilab

High-level, numerically oriented programming language.

Matrices are the main data type Open source ATOMS Since 1990

Contents

Background Overall comparison

Simulink vs. XcosInterface with DAQ cardVideo Tracking

Conclusions Future Development

Simulink

Building a model is easy Wide variety of blocks Short execution time of simulation Takes time to load Easy to transfer variables

Xcos

Building a model is uncomfortable Basic blocks Long execution time of simulation Not intuitive to transfer variables Easy to add user-defined blocks Loads quickly

Example 1 – “Auto Park”

Simulink Xcos

Execution

Time (sec) 79.477 1820.969

Example 2 – “LQR state feedback + noise”

Different kinds of noise

Same results as MATLAB

Good computation time (3 sec)

Xcos - Conclusions

Suitable for small projects GUI needs to be fixed More blocks should be added

Contents

Background Overall comparison

Simulink vs. XcosInterface with DAQ cardVideo Tracking

Conclusions Future Development

MATLAB

Contains “Real-Time Windows Target” DAQ card is fully supported by Simulink

Scilab

Currently not supported DAQmx has a C API Xcos can simply call C functions

DAQ card – conclusions

A toolbox for Scilab can easily be built Scilab can be easily extended

Contents

Background Overall comparison

Simulink vs. XcosInterface with DAQ cardVideo Tracking

Conclusions Future Development

MATLAB

Good support for reading images/video Full-Fledged Image Processing Toolbox

Scilab

Video reading support is experimental SIVP – meant for video processing SIP – still under development, difficult to

install under windows Image Processing Design Toolbox –

good support under windows

SIVP advantages

Video Tracking - Conclusions Currently not feasible under Scilab Toolboxes need to be more mature Development is currently under progress

Contents

Background Overall comparison

Simulink vs. XcosInterface with DAQ cardVideo Tracking

Conclusions Future Development

Overall Conclusions

Scilab can be used for homework exercises

Not yet developed enough for projects

Contents

Background Overall comparison

Simulink vs. XcosInterface with DAQ cardVideo Tracking

Conclusions Future Development

Future Development

Toolbox for DAQ card can be developed Conversion script (from MATLAB) may

be improved Keep track of new toolboxes from

ATOMS