MBSD Training: An Internal Perspective

In June of this year I had the opportunity to attend our DISTek-led Modeling and Simulation training course. Currently, I am the lead of the Automation and Test group here at DISTek, but in my previous roles I have been heavily involved in desktop application development, as well as test system development primarily using LabVIEW. My exposure to modeling and embedded has been somewhat limited thus far, so I thought it would be a good experience to learn some of the basics.

Capturing Requirements as Code with Simulink

Model based software design simplifies implementation of complex control systemsWhen I was attending classes at Northern Illinois University in pursuit of a Computer Science degree, I enrolled in a class called Software Engineering. The general idea of this class was training in the ability to elicit requirements from someone without a knowledge of how software works or how it should be created. The thinking was that someone with a better understanding of how a system should work would be led into providing the guidelines for the implementation so that the software developer could create their vision. But what if there was a way for that person to directly transfer their ideas into software, leaving the developer free to work with lower levels of implementation and the real nitty-gritty of the development?

New in Mathworks Simulink 2014A, the Data Dictionary

The new Simulink Data Dictionary is a key component to MBSD

For software engineers who use Simulink to do Model Based Software Development (MBSD), the ability to manage variables, also known as signals and parameters in Simulink, has always been a challenge. It has been possible but not without shortcomings, especially when dealing with large software systems.

For those not familiar with Simulink, Here is a brief outline of what the past issues have been.