title: Creating delay with a while loop in Matlab
body: <p>As a student I am currently working on a Matlab Simulink project. I am quite new to using Matlab/Simulink (few weeks).</p>
  
  <p>I want to implement and run a Matlab “.m” file with which I can open Simulink and start the simulation. The aim is to do a 24h Test with a load cell cut into 1h “pieces” and to save the data to different sheets of an excel file each hour. So my simulation runs for 1h, stops and starts again, and so on. Through Matlab and a “for” loop I do the measures 24 times.
  Between measuring steps I have to wait for simulink to finish its measures and saving the file in order for the Simulink window to be able to get closed by <code>close_system('Thesis_SerDatTransm_Simulink')</code>.</p>
  
  <p>So I tried to implement the delay with a while loop and by checking if the measures I get fit into an array of the size bigger than 449 (I measure 449 values):</p>
  
  <pre><code>for k=0:1:24
      % Load Simulink
      load_system('Thesis_SerDatTransm_Simulink.slx')
  
      % Open Simulink
      open_system('Thesis_SerDatTransm_Simulink.slx')  
  
      % Start Simulation
      set_param('Thesis_SerDatTransm_Simulink', 'SimulationCommand', 'Start');
  
      % Save Data
      my_cell = sprintf('A%d',k);
      xlswrite('file.xlsx',y,my_cell)
  
      % Wait for Simulation
      while 1
          test=size(y)&gt;=449;
         if (test)
           close_system('Thesis_SerDatTransm_Simulink')
           break
         end
      end
  end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The Problem now is, that program gets stuck at the while loop. Simulink is started, but no simulation or data gathering is done.
  So I wondered if anyone could check if something is wrong with my While loop, since the rest of the programm works all fine without the loop (but receiving an error message, that during the simulation, Simulink window can't be closed).
  I know there is a way to create a delay with <code>waitfor</code>in matlab and create another <code>function</code> which I could call, but I couldn't figure out how to do this yet. </p>
  
  <p>thanks</p>
  
  <p>Regards</p>
  
  <p>hohmchri</p>