This MATLAB® example shows you how to configure and control external hardware in MATLAB. Specifically, we show how to use MATLAB to communicate with a Garmin® handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver with an RS-232 serial interface.
MATLAB supports serial devices including RS-232 using the Instrument Control Toolbox™. In the article, we describe how to use a graphical user interface called TMTool to locate, configure, and control the hardware without writing MATLAB script. We also show how to create drivers to incorporate lower level commands.

This MATLAB example is featured and explained in the May 2007 MATLAB Digest article called "Configuring and Controlling External Hardware in MATLAB" authored by Trent Jarvi of The MathWorks. This article is available at:
http://www.mathworks.com/company/newsletters/articles/configuring-and-controlling-external-hardware-in-matlab.html
Learn more about using MATLAB with a wide array of external hardware such as serial devices and instruments at the following page:
http://www.mathworks.com/hardware-support/instrument-control-software.html