Generate MEX Function Containing Persistent System Objects

Sometimes, it is convenient to put System objects inside a function that is to be called many times. This eliminates the overhead in creating new instances of a System object™ each time the function is called. You can write logic which creates the System object just once and declares it to be persistent. For example, suppose you require the response of an 11-element ULA for several different arrival angles and want to plot that response versus angle.

function plot_ULA_response
azangles = [-90:90];
elangles = zeros(size(azangles));
fc = 100e9;
c = physconst('LightSpeed');
N = size(azangles,2);
lambda = c/fc;
d = 0.4*lambda;
numelements = 11;
resp = zeros(1,N);
sIso = phased.IsotropicAntennaElement(...
    'FrequencyRange',[1,200]*1e9,...
    'BackBaffled',false);
sULA = phased.ULA('Element',sIso,...
    'NumElements',numelements,...
    'ElementSpacing',d,...
    'Taper',taylorwin(numelements).');
for n = 1:N
    x = get_ULA_response(sULA,fc,azangles(n),elangles(n));
    resp(n) = abs(x);
end
plot(azangles,20*log10(resp));
title('ULA Response');
xlabel('Angle (deg)');
ylabel('Response (db)');
grid;
end

function resp = get_ULA_response(sULA,fc,az,el)
persistent sAR;
c = physconst('LightSpeed');
if isempty(sAR)
    sAR = phased.ArrayResponse('SensorArray',sULA,...
        'PropagationSpeed',c,...
        'WeightsInputPort',false,...
        'EnablePolarization',false);
end
resp = sAR(fc,[az;el]);
end

To create the code, run codegen (MATLAB Coder)to create the MEX file plot_ULA_response_mex, and execute the mex file at the command line:

codegen plot_ULA_response
plot_ULA_response_mex;

which yields the plot