Tip of the Week - Create Virtual Instrument Panels using Custom Gauges & Controls
One of the objectives of lab-based instruction can be to develop students’ familiarity with hardware equipment. When students could no longer come to their lab in person, educators at HTW Dresden developed a MATLAB app using App Designer to replicate the controls on lab equipment such as a signal generator and oscilloscope. Read this article to learn more about how Dr. Henker and Dr. Kelber virtualized their electrical engineering labs.
If you use Simulink or Simscape models for your virtual labs, you can create an interactive display of controls and displays within your model diagram using blocks from the Dashboard library. To do so, connect block parameters to control blocks (knobs, buttons, and switches) and signals to displays blocks (scopes and gauges).
New customizable Knob, Vertical Slider, and Horizontal Slider blocks introduced in R2021a let you choose your own background image, foreground image, handle or slider image, and scale appearance. By combining these with custom gauge blocks, you can create intuitive and photo-realistic dashboards for interacting with your models, such as in the image below.
View examples of controlling simulations with interactive displays, or read some more Tips for Moving your Lab-based Classes Online.
