In the last few years, Simulink has become the most
widely used software package in academia and industry for modeling and simulating dynamical systems.
Simulink encourages you to try things out. You can easily build models from scratch, or take an existing model and add to it. Simulations are interactive, so you can change parameters “on the fly” and immediately see what happens.
You have instant access to all of the analysis tools in MATLAB®, so you can
take the results and analyze and visualize them. We hope that you will get a
sense of the fun of modeling and simulation, through an environment that
encourages you to pose a question, model it, and see what happens.
With Simulink, you can move beyond idealized linear models to explore more
realistic nonlinear models, factoring in friction, air resistance, gear slippage,
hard stops, and the other things that describe real-world phenomena. It turns
your computer into a lab for modeling and analyzing systems that simply
wouldn’t be possible or practical otherwise, whether the behavior of an
automotive clutch system, the flutter of an airplane wing, the dynamics of a
predator-prey model, or the effect of the monetary supply on the economy.
Simulink is also practical.With thousands of engineers around the world using
it to model and solve real problems, knowledge of this tool will serve you well
throughout your professional career.
We hope you enjoy exploring the software.
Aiming to give students exposure to the techniques of modelling and simulation, this work shows how to build and test virtual prototypes to explore and study dynamical systems concepts at any level.