Communications

MATLAB and Simulink product families help engineers design and simulate communications systems with greater speed and accuracy. Using detailed low-level models and higher-level behavioral abstractions, communications engineers can implement the desired level of model fidelity and run-time performance from within a single environment. MATLAB and Simulink streamline design flows by helping engineers to:

Design and simulate communication algorithms and systems by using top-to-bottom design methods.
Combine Signal Processing, analog/mixed signal, and RF fields in a single system model.
Design, simulate, and verify complex systems by using standards like LTE.
Design prototypes to activate online radio design with hardware connections like USRP®

Communications Infrastructure

Base station and network engineers use MATLAB and Simulink to:

Design and model end-to-end communications links
Design, simulate, and verify complex wireless systems using industry standards such LTE.
Efficiently model advanced channels such as MIMO and analyze the effects of impairments on network performance.

Mobile Devices

MATLAB and Simulink tools are widely used in communication system designs. This includes system-level design and analysis, modeling of communications channels, simulation using standard-compliant waveforms such as LTE and rapid prototyping using FPGAs. In addition, mobile communications engineers use MATLAB and Simulink to:

Design and simulate multidomain models that include Signal Processing, Analog/mixed-signal, and RF elements.
Coordinate systemic behavioral models with SPICE, HDL or digital and analog sub-systems defined by hardware
Integrate audio, video, and computer vision applications into next-generation mobile devices.

a. Behavioral Analog/Mixed Signal Design

With low-level devices, analog/mixed signal and RF system behavior research takes too much time. MATLAB & Simulink allows faster exploration of system behavior, including mixed signals and RF elements. Mobile device engineers model systems at a higher abstraction level while incorporating blocks for digital signal processing and other field-specific behaviors. This allows them to simulate the system faster with realistic and environmental effects to improve the general system design. Algorithms and other component models facilitate the cooperation between teams and can be reused for application and verification.

b. Audio, Video, and Computer Vision Algorithm Design

In this day and age, mobile devices have become the primary tools to watch video streams, surf on the web and listen to music. Thus, mobile devices must support the latest hardware and software algorithms for real-time video streaming and on-demand sound processing algorithms. Engineers use MATLAB to develop most of these multimedia algorithms, which then can be deployed to the latest mobile platforms.

c. System Verification with Cosimulation

Integrating analog and baseband sub-systems with system-level models via cosimulation ensures early diagnosis of the design errors within the sub-systems and interface limits. In MATLAB & Simulink environment, communication engineers can connect sub-systems modelled in different forms and different accuracy levels. Thus, they can ensure co-working of the sub-systems and compliance with original design specifications.

Optical and Wireline Networks

Telecommunications and signal integrity engineers use MATLAB and Simulink to design, simulate, and model high-speed digital interface elements. Popular applications of MATLAB and Simulink tools include:

Designing SerDes algorithms such as equalizer and clock data recovery (CDR)
Modeling high-speed backplanes
Exploring architectural tradeoffs using system-level simulation
Creating HDL, IBIS-AMI, or SystemVerilog DPI models for implementation or validation

a. High-Speed Backplane and Channel Modelling

Signal integrity engineers need effective and reliable tools to easily analyze high-speed backplane quality. RF Toolbox™ lets engineers to transfer N-port S parameters into MATLAB and create rational functions modelling the channel defects of a passive backplane. These models, then, can be used within the signal integrity simulations to measure vibration or examine eye closure.

b. Comprehensive Model Production

Due to the wideness of the design challenges facing high-speed digital designers, portability of models and connectability with verification environments are always needed. Simulink allows creation of models in various formats, including extraction, for hardware synthesis, embedded software deployment or simulation in other EDA environments.

Model creation formats include:

VHDL or Verilog
C / C ++
SystemVerilog DPI Components
IBIS-AMI