Communications block set

The MathWorks has announced the availability of Communications Block-set 3, which provides engineers with enhanced features for designing and simulating the physical layer of communication systems and components, such as commercial or defence wireless and wire-line systems using model-based design.

This version of the product also includes new channel visualisation and bit error rate (BER) analysis features, which enable users to access the communications system simulation capabilities of MATLAB and Simulink within one GUI environment.

The new channel visualisation features in the Communication Block-set 3 provide engineers with insight into the time-, frequency- and phaser-domain behaviour of channel models. These capabilities give designers the power to visualise and explore time-varying communications channels, to pause simulations and focus on channel behaviour at an instant in time, and to use this information to design effective receivers. The BER tool allows users to quickly compare the results of their simulations to well-known theoretical benchmarks, prepare presentation-quality BER graphics and analyse their BER simulation results within one GUI environment.

The Communications Block-set 3 also includes several libraries that provide users with enhanced capabilities. The synchronisation library allows users to build receiver models with more fidelity than was previously possible without writing custom C-code. The equalisation library provides ways to model numerous adaptive and non-adaptive algorithms, including maximum likelihood sequence estimation.