How to read COM port data continuously and plot the data live in MATLAB?

Using UART of my microcontroller (MSP430) I am sending data from MCU to the serial port of my PC. I can watch the data continuously in Teraterm. Now I would like to plot the data in MATLAB. So, how can I continuously read a COM port in MATLAB and plot the data?

Thanks, Row

[Amélie Serrano]

Hello Row,

I have exactly the same question as you, did you manage to display the results from the UART obtained on a Matlab interface ?

Thank you,

Amélie

[Oscar Green]

For continuous monitoring of the COM port, it will be possible to try https://www.com-port-monitoring.com/. The software is free so it's worth a try.

I didnt tested this option yet, but I use bunch of other options such as scripting, macro definition, TCP/UDP .

Answer 1

[Brian Hu]

Hello Row,

It seems like there are two separate angles to address with your implementation using MATLAB to read COM port values from your microcontroller: reading values from the serial COM port and getting a continuous stream of data. In order to give a thorough response, I will address both these approaches sequentially.

You can import data into MATLAB through a COM port by creating a serial device in MATLAB that acts as a communication channel. In order to create this serial object and read and write data, please refer to the details in the documentation page below.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_external/writing-and-reading-data.html

There are several additional steps you can take in order to receive a continuous stream of data. First, you will want to set the 'IsContinuous' property of the serial object you created in the first step to 1, allowing a nonstop flow of data. If you are interested in plotting the data and having it update continuously, you would want to create a callback function which uses the 'BytesAvailable' property of the serial object to update your plot after a certain amount of data has been registered in the serial buffer. The first link I attached below goes over the valid callback properties of serial objects, while the second is a general overview of callback functions and their implementations.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_external/events-and-callbacks.html

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/creating_plots/callback-definition.html