Generate white noise in Modelica (SystemModeler) - modelica

Question

I am trying to add measurement noise to a simulation. This is possible to do in for example Simulink but seems to be more difficult in Modelica and SystemModeler.
Any ideas on how to do this?

Answer 1

You can add white noise in Wolfram SystemModeler via external C-code.
Modelica code (I've removed the diagram annotations from the code, so that it might be easier to read):
package WhiteNoise "Package for generating white noise"
extends Modelica.Icons.Library;
block NoiseNormal "Normally distributed random noise"
parameter Real mean=0 "Mean value of random noise";
parameter Real stdev=1 "Standard deviation of random noise";
parameter Real tSample=0.01 "Noise sample time";
Modelica.Blocks.Interfaces.RealOutput y;
equation
when initial() then
WhiteNoise.initRandomNormal();
end when;
when sample(0, tSample) then
y=mean + stdev*WhiteNoise.RandomNormal(time);
end when;
end NoiseNormal;
function initRandomNormal
external "C" ext_initRandomNormal() annotation(Include="#include \"ext_initRandNormal.c\"");
end initRandomNormal;
function RandomNormal
output Real y;
input Real u;
external "C" y=ext_RandomNormal(u) annotation(Include="#include \"ext_RandNormal.c\"");
end RandomNormal;
end WhiteNoise;
External code:
ext_intRandNormal.c
#include <math.h>
#include <limits.h>
void ext_initRandomNormal()
{
srand(time(NULL));
}
ext_RandNormal.c
#include <math.h>
#include <limits.h>
double ext_RandomNormal(double timein)
{
unsigned int seed = 0;
double v1, v2, r;
timein /= 100;
seed = (timein - floor(timein)) * UINT_MAX;
do
{
v1 = 2 * ((double) rand()) /((double) RAND_MAX) - 1;
v2 = 2 * ((double) rand()) /((double) RAND_MAX) - 1;
r = v1 * v1 + v2 * v2;
} while((r >= 1.0) || (r == 0.0));
return v1 * sqrt( - 2.0 * log(r) / r );
}

Answer 2

An alternative is to use Modelica.Blocks.Noise to avoid writing external code yourself (added in Modelica Standard Library 3.2.2 released April 3, 2016; i.e. it would not have helped when the original question was asked).
One benefit of Modelica.Blocks.Noise is that the tricky questions with sampling, multiple seeds, etc are solved.