Supervisor: Arie Nakhmani Students: Eli Tsiben & Guy Dor Lederfein Semester: Spring 2011

1. Supervisor: Arie Nakhmani Students: Eli Tsiben & Guy Dor Lederfein Semester: Spring 2011 Scilab - a good MATLAB alternative?

2. Contents • Background • Overall comparison • Simulink vs. Xcos • Interface with DAQ card • Video Tracking • Conclusions • Future Development

3. MATLAB • Various uses in engineering, science, and economics • Matrices are the main data type • High cost • Closed source • Developed for over 30 years

4. Scilab • High-level, numerically oriented programming language. • Matrices are the main data type • Open source  • ATOMS • Since 1990

5. Contents • Background • Overall comparison • Simulink vs. Xcos • Interface with DAQ card • Video Tracking • Conclusions • Future Development

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

7. 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

8. Example 1 – “Auto Park”

9. Example 2 – “LQR state feedback + noise” • Different kinds of noise • Same results as MATLAB • Good computation time (3 sec)

10. Xcos - Conclusions • Suitable for small projects • GUI needs to be fixed • More blocks should be added

11. Contents • Background • Overall comparison • Simulink vs. Xcos • Interface with DAQ card • Video Tracking • Conclusions • Future Development

12. MATLAB • Contains “Real-Time Windows Target” • DAQ card is fully supported by Simulink

13. Scilab • Currently not supported • DAQmx has a C API • Xcos can simply call C functions

14. DAQ card – conclusions • A toolbox for Scilab can easily be built • Scilab can be easily extended

15. Contents • Background • Overall comparison • Simulink vs. Xcos • Interface with DAQ card • Video Tracking • Conclusions • Future Development

16. MATLAB • Good support for reading images/video • Full-Fledged Image Processing Toolbox

17. 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

18. SIVP advantages

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

20. Contents • Background • Overall comparison • Simulink vs. Xcos • Interface with DAQ card • Video Tracking • Conclusions • Future Development

21. Overall Conclusions • Scilab can be used for homework exercises • Not yet developed enough for projects

22. Contents • Background • Overall comparison • Simulink vs. Xcos • Interface with DAQ card • Video Tracking • Conclusions • Future Development

23. Future Development • Toolbox for DAQ card can be developed • Conversion script (from MATLAB) may be improved • Keep track of new toolboxes from ATOMS