infrared emitter on Simulink not working

Hello,

I am getting struggle to find an answer to a small Arduino Proyect that I would like to develop using Simulink.

I have the following Infrared Emitter Sensor (http://wiki.seeedstudio.com/Grove-Infrared_Emitter/) and Infrared Receiver Sensor (http://wiki.seeedstudio.com/Grove-Infrared_Receiver/).

The goal of the proyect is to detect when an object pass through the beam of a pair of digital Infrared Sensors. Once blocked/detected, the arduino will push a solenoid (platform) to prevent the object to bounce after hitting the ground. And at the end, I want to also measure the velocity of the object by placing a total of 3 pairs of digital Infrared Sensors. The solenoid part seems to work with a simple pulse generator, so I hope this part is "done" for the moment.

My approaches were that I can see a value of '0' from the Emitter and a value of '1' from the Receiver. I guess this tells me that the Receiver is waiting for the beam from the Emitter to be sent, but as the Emitter does not give me a value of '1', I am simply not sending any beam from the Emitter sensor. Please correct me here if I'm wrong. So my question is: How can I make the Emitter to change its value?.

Once this is solved, I'll try to check when does it cut the beam between them (I will try it with an add block), so that I can tell the Arduino to move the Solenoid (I hope that won't cause me problems). Finally, and here I have more doubts, is to place at least another pair of sensors (in a lower vertical position) to been able to measure an approximation of the object's velocity by comparing time taken and distance beetwen them. Extra question if I may: Will the too many sensors and the solenoid with its circuit (Transistor & diode) affect my whole proyect, or does it sound feasible for you?

Thanks in advance for your time,

David De Querol