Using a Smart Motor with Matlab

I have a Smart Motor made my Animatics (www.animatics.com). They have examples of how to control it using a COM object in C++ and Visual Basic. I have tried using the actxserver function but to no avail.

The VB sample is as follows:

Sub EngineUserSub()
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler:

' Create an instance of SMIHost object
Dim CommInterface As SMIHost
Set CommInterface = New SMIHost

CommInterface.OpenPort(“COM1”)
n = CommInterface.AddressMotorChain

‘ Send a command and get response
CommInterface.DefaultMotor = 1
CommInterface.WriteCommand(“RSP”)
Dim Response As String
Response = CommInterface.ReadResponse
MsgBox(Response)

If anyone has accomplished this or has any insight, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Ryan

Answer 1

[Daniel]

The following may be helpful:

Note: a space acts as a delimiter for commands sent to the motor

function openmoveclose(x)

%open the serial port COM1
%apply the displacement x (in steps)
%close the port

% choose the serial port COM1
s = serial('COM1');
% set all the properties of the port
s.BaudRate           = 9600;
s.DataBits           = 8;
s.Terminator         = 'LF/CR';
s.RequestToSend      = 'off';
s.FlowControl        = 'software';
s.DataTerminalReady  = 'off';
s.parity             = 'none';

%open the port
fopen(s);

%apply displacement
%allow 5ms second for initialization => prevent 'fuzzy' dismissal of the command
%clear the board memory

%remove hardware limits, set velocity and acceleration
preamble = ['EIGN(2) EIGN(3) ZS a=0 AT=9000 VT=283032 END'];

command = ['WAIT=5' ' ' 'PT=' int2str(sign(x)*round(abs(x))) ' ' 'G'];

fprintf(s,preamble);
fprintf(s,command);

%close the port
fclose(s);
delete(s)
clear s;
end