Variant Signal Dimensions

Symbolic dimensions in Simulink^® represent signal dimensions in the model. Instead of using fixed numerical values for dimensions during model development, you use symbols. This enables you to experiment with different dimension sets without altering the model each time you make a change to signal dimensions. Wherever you need to specify a signal dimension, such as in blocks and data objects, you can use symbolic dimensions instead of numerical values. For more information on signal dimensions, see Signal Dimensions.

Symbolic dimensions are useful in scenarios where the number of data streams can vary depending on the type of system. For example, in a Simulink model for a tire-pressure monitoring system that monitors tire pressure data from multiple tires, the number of tires can vary depending on the type of the vehicle (such as cars, trucks, and motorcycles). By using a symbolic dimensionnumTires to represent the number of tires, you can design a model that adapts to different numbers of tires without altering the model structure.

When you generate code using Embedded Coder^®, the symbols are incorporated in the generated code. The generated code includes symbolic dimensions in preprocessor conditionals, making the code adaptable to different dimensions without needing to regenerate the code. For more information, see Implement Symbolic Dimensions for Array Sizes in Generated Code (Embedded Coder).