Fmincon where objective function comes from an external program batch file

Hello everyone,

I have a script for APDL (Finite Element Analysis software) where I would like to perform an optimization.

I can get MATLAB to run the APDL script and store the output data for a single run analysis only. However, for the optimization I am having difficulty understanding how to link all the variables and function calling to fmincon.

First: I allocate memory, specify program to be run and the input and output files.

SET KMP_STACKSIZE=4096k & "D:\ANSYS Inc\ANSYS Student\v192\ansys\bin\winx64\ansys192.exe" -b -C:\Users\user\Desktop\macs -i "trial3.mac" -o "matlabout2.txt"

Trial3.mac, the analysis file is long and not needed here (though i can post if needed), it basically performs the FEA analysis in APDL using input parameters from a .inp file and at the end stores the value of the objective function parameter in a seperate file, .parm.

How do i link all of these so fmincon calls the batch file, change inputs and pass new inputs each time after analyzing the new objective function?

For reference I am also attaching a video where the problem is completely identical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE3NkH1m24w however, the video does not show how to use fmincon.