Chapter 3
ICDM Main Window
©
National Instruments Corporation
3-3
Xmath Interactive Control Design Module
Most Common Usage
In most cases, you will read a plant from Xmath at the beginning of an
ICDM design session, and write one or more controllers back to Xmath
during or at the end of an ICDM design session. This is done by selecting
the appropriate entries in the
File
menu.
Reading a plant into ICDM is often the first thing you do in a design
session. Before a plant is read in, the plots will be empty and you will
be unable to open any synthesis windows.
Similarly, writing the ICDM controller back to Xmath is often the last thing
you do in an ICDM design session before quitting or exiting. If the current
controller has not been written to Xmath and you attempt to exit ICDM,
a dialog box will open and ask for confirmation before exiting.
Default Plants
By selecting
FileRead Default Plant
, a dialog box will open which you
can use to read one of three default plants into ICDM. This default plant
dialog box is only meant to be used when you are learning how to use
ICDM and need a quick way to enter a plant. It saves you the trouble of
creating a plant in Xmath and then reading it into ICDM. It has no real use,
except in the unlikely event that your plant happens to be one of the default
plants.
Saving and Restoring an ICDM Session
The
FileSave Tool
button saves the entire state of the ICDM tool into an
Xmath save file. You can continue the design session at another time or on
another computer using the
FileRestore Tool
button.
Reading Another Plant into ICDM
When you first start ICDM, you can read a plant from Xmath using the
FileRead plant from
Xmath
button. After there is a plant defined in ICDM,
you can only read a new plant into ICDM from Xmath when there is no
synthesis window and the history window is not open. If you try to read a
plant when a synthesis window or the History window is open, a dialog box
will notify you that the open synthesis or History
window first must be
closed.
Reading a new plant into ICDM when there already was a defined plant has
several important consequences. First, all controllers on the history list that
were designed by the Pole Place, LQG, or synthesis windows are converted
