Control Software Development and Testing Using MATLAB

With increasing complexity and the continuously evolving control systems of the current automotive domain, it is becoming tedious to develop and maintain different application software with the conventional methodology of handwritten C code. It even becomes difficult to use it for technology demonstration projects where time is a critical factor. To address this challenge, the model-based development approach is gaining traction among Tier 1/OEMs. Automatic verification and validation and code generation make the development process much more efficient and effective. This not only saves the time required for the development, but it also avoids error-prone hand-coding. Error prevention and early error detection is achieved using model-based development.

In this talk, a model-based approach for application software is discussed where the control system is developed using Simulink^®, Stateflow^®, and MATLAB^®. For better optimization, standard library functions are created and reused in various sub-modules. Studies from requirement traceability to control function development and tagging with test case are being done using Simulink. To maintain the traceability of the models to system requirements, the description of the functionality is written in Simulink blocks when modelling is completed. In this way, ambiguity between the model developed and the system requirements is eliminated, and higher coverage is achieved.