Quick start 1: Build & simulate a basic design

In the following quick start tutorial, we will drag and drop sinusoidal signal generators from the Functional block library and combine their outputs via an adder to demonstrate a simple sinusoidal adder design.

Part 1: Drag and drop the required components onto the design layout

1. Launch a new application of SystemLab|Design by double left-clicking on the SystemLab-Design.exe executable file.

2. Go to the Functional block library (left panel of GUI) and hover over the triangle in front of the Waveform generators group (under Electrical).

3. Left-click mouse to expand the menu.

4. Left-click select and hold over the Sine Generator component and start moving your mouse towards the design scene for Project_1.

5. Release the mouse button anywhere over the design layout. [An icon representing a sinusoidal signal generator should appear on the layout].

6. Using the same procedure, add another Sine Generator and an Adder (from under the Mathematical operators group).

7. Arrange the three components in the project layout as shown below.

Part 2: Connect ports and adjust main simulation settings

8. On the upper tool bar of the SystemLab|Design interface, click on the Elbow connector button

9. Starting from the upper Sine functional block, hover over the output port (small blue rectangle) and left-click select/hold your mouse [black cross hairs should appear above the port icon].

10. Move the mouse cursor towards the upper input port of the Adder functional block and release the mouse once the cursor is directly stationed over the port [the connection should complete as shown below].

11. Repeat the same procedure for the lower Sine generator.

12. Select the Settings icon on the on the Tool bar, and within the Simulation settings tab of the Project settings dialog, change the Simulation time from 1.000E-08 to 2.0E-9 (as shown below).

13. Select OK to save and close the Project settings dialog.

Part 3: Adjust the parameters for the upper LO, run simulation and view results

14. On the design layout (Project_1), double left-click on the lower Sine functional block. [The Functional block properties dialog will open].

15. Within the Input parameters tab, change the value of the Frequency from 5e9 to 10e9 and the Amplitude from 1 to 2.

16. Select OK to save the settings and close the Functional block properties dialog.

17. From the Tool bar, click on the blue Start button (blue triangle) to launch the simulator. [The Simulation status dialog should indicate that all iterations (in this case one) were successfully completed!].

18. Close the Simulation status dialog by left-clicking on the x icon in the top right corner of the dialog.

19. To review the signal results for our simulation, position the mouse cursor over the output (dark filled) port of the Adder functional block. Once the cross-hairs appear, double left-click on your mouse to open the Electrical signal data analyzer.

    The first tab shows the time-domain sampled signal for the simulation. If we select the second tab we can view the frequency-domain data for the same sampled data set. As expected, we can see both sinusoidal frequency components for the sampled signal: 5 GHz and 10 GHz. Also, as the frequency data is in power units, we see that the 10 GHz frequency component is roughly 4 times greater (or twice the amplitude) than the 5 GHz signal.

    Similarly, you can double left-click over any other port in a design scene to view the sampled signal data (entering or exiting a functional block).

20. To close the Electrical signal data analyzer dialog, left-click on the x icon in the top right corner of the dialog.

21. You can save the project by going to File/Save project or File/Save project as in the Menu bar. [By default the project will be saved within the “systemlab_main” folder (as a “.slb” format)]

22. To close the project, either select File/Close project or the Close tab x icon for the project.