NewStateMachine()

Description

Creates a new, empty state machine.

• The state machine description returned is a struct with 21 subfields:

  • Meta: a struct with information about the state machine (sizes of variables, precomputed for speed)

  • nStates: the number of states that have been added to the state machine

  • Manifest: a cell array listing the names of states that have been referenced by other states (though not explicitly added yet)

  • nStatesInManifest: the number of states in the manifest

  • StateNames: a cell array of strings containing the name of each state added to the state machine with AddState(); initialized as a 1x1 cell with the string "Placeholder"

  • InputMatrix: each row is a state, each column is an input event. The matrix specifies the new state to go to if each event occurrs in each state.

  • OutputMatrix: each row is a state, each column is an output action. The matrix specifies the value of each output action in each state.

    • StateTimerMatrix: for each state, specifies the new state to go to if the state's internal timer elapses.

  • GlobalTimerStartMatrix: each row is a state, each column is a global timer. The matrix specifies the new state to go to when the global timer starts.

  • GlobalTimerEndMatrix: each row is a state, each column is a global timer. The matrix specifies the new state to go to when the global timer elapses.

  • GlobalTimers: each column is a timer. This vector specifies the current setting of each timer in seconds.

  • GlobalCounterMatrix: each row is a state, each column is a global counter. The matrix specifies the new state to go to if the counter's threshold is exceeded.

  • GlobalCounterEvents: each column is a counter. This vector specifies the input event being counted. It defaults to 255 (no input event).

  • GlobalCounterThresholds: each column is a counter. This vector specifies the number of events recorded before each counter is exceeded.

  • GlobalCounterSet: each column is a counter. This vector specifies whether each counter was used in the current matrix (1) or not (0).

  • ConditionMatrix: each row is a state, each column is a configurable input channel condition. The matrix specifies the new state to go to if the condition is satisfied.

  • ConditionChannels: The input channel index linked to each condition.

  • ConditionValues: The value of the input channel (specified in ConditionChannels) for each condition to be satisfied.

  • StateTimers: each column is a state. This vector specifies the setting of each state's internal timer in seconds.

  • StatesDefined: each column is a state. States appear in the matrix as blank states when first referred to as the target of a state transition. StatesDefined is then set from 0 to 1 when the state is finally added.

• States can be added to the empty state machine description with the AddState() function.

Syntax

StateMachine = NewStateMachine();

Parameters

-None

Returns

• An empty state machine struct

Example

% This code initializes a state matrix and then adds one state:

sma = NewStateMachine();

sma = AddState(sma, 'Name', 'MyState', ...

'Timer', 1,...

'StateChangeConditions', {'Tup', 'exit'},...

'OutputActions', {});