Utilities Functions
- Updated2023-03-14
- 2 minute(s) read
Owning Palette: Simulation VIs and Functions
Requires: Control Design and Simulation Module. This topic might not match its corresponding palette in LabVIEW depending on your operating system, licensed product(s), and target.
Use the Utilities functions to perform various tasks such as creating a history of signal values and the times at which they were recorded, indexing a signal by simulation time, reporting simulation time, reporting simulation errors, stopping the simulation programmatically, and returning the simulation parameters.
The functions on this palette can return general LabVIEW error codes or specific Simulation error codes. If you use the functions on this palette in a Control & Simulation Loop, LabVIEW sends any errors that these functions return to the Error output on the Output Node of the Control & Simulation Loop.
| Palette Object | Description |
|---|---|
| Collector | Collects a signal at each time step of the simulation and returns a history of the signal value and the time at which this function recorded each value in the history. |
| External Model | Represents an external, or third-party, model that you want to simulate. The External Model function references a shared library that defines the dynamic equations for the model. The LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation Module then uses an ordinary differential equation (ODE) solver to compute the behavior of the dynamic system model that the External Model function represents.
You must place this function inside a simulation diagram. The configuration dialog box parameters and block diagram inputs and outputs of the External Model function depend on the configuration of the shared library that this function references. Use the Select an External Model Library dialog box to specify the shared library you want to reference. |
| Halt Simulation | Stops the simulation at the end of the current time step, if the value of the Halt? parameter is TRUE. This function does not have a configuration dialog box. |
| Indexer | Indexes a waveform or array by the current simulation time. |
| Memory | Stores the value of the Input signal from the previous iteration of the simulation. Use this polymorphic function to transfer values from one iteration of the Control & Simulation Loop to the next. The data type you wire to the Initial Value input determines the polymorphic instance to use. |
| Report Simulation Error | Reports an error to the top-level Control & Simulation Loop. This function does not have a configuration dialog box. |
| Simulation Parameters | Returns a cluster containing the current simulation parameters. You set these parameters using the Configure Simulation Parameters dialog box and/or the Input Node of the Control & Simulation Loop. This function does not have a configuration dialog box. |
| Simulation Time | Returns the current simulation time. This value is useful if you terminate the simulation before the final time and you want to know the time at which the simulation terminated. This value also is useful if you want to generate a signal based upon the simulation time without using the Signal Generation functions. This function does not have a configuration dialog box. |