Page 62 - EE Times Europe Magazine – November 2023

62 EE|Times EUROPE

THE INDUSTRY
MATLAB Expo: What’s Driving System-Level

Tools’ Rising Use in Embedded?

By Robert Huntley

ATLAB EXPO U.K. is an annual event for MATLAB and
Simulink users. This year, 600 delegates gathered to hear the
latest news from MathWorks. The event focused on network-
Ming, technical presentations and shared experiences with
the latest trends and advances in technology and science. Presentation
topics included AI, telecommunications, autonomous systems, robotics
and electrification.
During the event, EE Times Europe caught up with two executives to
learn how embedded developers increasingly use MathWorks’ products. (Source: MathWorks)
Richard Rovner, VP of marketing at MathWorks (Natick, Massachusetts),
explained the importance of MATLAB EXPO in communicating with users:
“With over 130 software products and releases twice a year, we know our
users have a really hard time keeping current with all the new capabilities. because they aren’t doing anything overly complex. After all, they would
We have lots of information on our website and regular digital communi- need more people, but they are still developing something difficult, so
cations, but you are dedicated and focused when you come here for a day. they must do something quickly, cheaply, efficiently and complex enough
The event is aimed at our users, and it’s an opportunity for them to learn to become a valuable product. Many startups use engineered systems, and
about what’s new, [to learn about] the software they more than likely have they use our products because they want to go from inception of design
access to but have yet to use, and to learn from each other.” to running the system as quickly as possible.”
EE Times Europe asked Martin whether there had been a fundamen-
MODELING AND SIMULATING EMBEDDED SYSTEMS tal way embedded developers approach system design. Did they have
To many embedded system developers, using modeling and simulation to change through necessity, or is there a new school of developers
tools for straightforward use cases might appear unnecessary. However, looking to do things quicker and smarter? “Part of the change is through
the tools are the norm for designing highly complicated systems, partic- necessity,” he said. “Twenty or so years ago, embedded systems focused
ularly for operation in multi-domain environments like aerospace flight on devices like MPC555. What could you do with it compared with today’s
controls and autonomous vehicles. Arm Cortex device with a GPU? Today, we’re developing embedded
“Over the last two decades, we’ve seen growth in the complexity of these systems with power budgets [the same as 20 years ago] that are radically
embedded systems, and it’s happening in more and more applications,” different. It would be utterly trivial to do what we did 25 years ago on the
Rovner told EE Times Europe. “Everyone knows about aero and auto, but hardware we now have. The market has pushed people to do clever things,
take industrial automation, a sector where complex system use is rising. and the demands of what the market expects you to be able to do with
Overall, we see tremendous growth in complex systems, and this stems from embedded hardware are such that complexity is just intrinsic because
incorporating software into more of the design process from the beginning. there’s so much more compute available.”
Software design is becoming more ingrained in the whole workflow.”
To illustrate the increasing complexity of embedded systems and the INCREASING PRODUCTIVITY
reasons to model and simulate a design, Rovner gave an example of an Martin noted the need for large and small organizations to be productive
intelligent sensor application: “You might want to include AI, but that and pointed to a one-person development organization as an example,
involves selecting the correct algorithm, planning the training and test- saying the developer realized he would be far more productive using a
ing of the algorithm, [and] then you have to think about the embedded system-level design tool.
design and deploying it to the network. Also, there are trends, such as “Productivity should always take the lead,” he said. “I hope any embed-
digital twins or autonomous operation, to consider. Once in the field, the ded developer would have a system model in mind with an understanding
sensors need monitoring and updating. of how a development fits together. That’s the system model approach: Use
“Even for small, straightforward devices, there are opportunities to toolchains to make yourself effective because you’re not productive writing
think about it from a model-based design perspective,” he added. “That code. Writing code is quite hard work. You have to think about incredibly
also gives you a platform to work with, and once you have that platform, low-level things. By pushing the design aspects to higher-level concepts,
you will build similar devices much more quickly. We have a lot of users in you will likely be more productive and produce a higher-quality design.”
the major industrial corporations, but we also have thousands of startup
companies using MATLAB and Simulink from the beginning.” ENGINEERED PRODUCT? THINK MODELING AND SIMULATION
EE Times Europe asked Rovner what advice he would give to engineers and
FASTER TRACK FROM INCEPTION TO DEPLOYMENT developers to encourage the adoption of modeling and simulation tools. “If
Jos Martin, director of engineering at MathWorks, offered another per- you are at the point where you are about to design an engineered product
spective on rising system complexity, noting that what might have had that will have some level of performance, is intelligent and has a predictive
30,000 lines of code two decades ago may have 2 million lines of code capability, you need to think about modeling and simulation,” he said.
today. “What we thought of as simple 20 years ago is now so complex “Using this approach, you’ll get from prototype to product faster, cheaply
compared with 20 years ago that what we now consider simple is still and with fewer errors. You’ll also discover bugs early in the process rather
really hard,” he said. than later, when they become expensive.” ■
Martin then explained why startups are adopting MathWorks products
from scratch: “Lots of startups are using MATLAB. I highlight them more This article originally ran online at tinyurl.com/7pyuk685.

NOVEMBER 2023 | www.eetimes.eu