CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
17 June 2008
Implementation Investments
HUSCO Uses MathWorks Products to Create Intelligent Valve Controllers for 20-Ton Excavator
The MathWorks announced that HUSCO International, a global leader in the development and manufacture of hydraulic and electrohydraulic controls, used MathWorks products to create a sophisticated “smart” valve for a 20-ton excavator using Intelligent Control Valve (INCOVA) technology.
Using Model-Based Design and MathWorks products, such as Simulink, Real-Time Workshop, and xPC Target, enabled HUSCO engineers to design and develop the control system for a new valve in less than three months, 50 percent faster than prior designs. With Simulink, HUSCO engineers were able to develop a control system design that can be integrated with a broad range of valve applications, each having different numbers of cylinders. Using Real-Time Workshop to generate code from the Simulink model, HUSCO engineers were able to implement engineering design changes within an hour, roughly eight times faster than previous projects. As a result, HUSCO is able to fully leverage their investment in the design on future projects.
“By electronically controlling the valves with our INCOVA technology, we increase excavator efficiency by a number of measures,” said Darren Hartman, software team leader at HUSCO International.“The control, however, requires optimization and debugging, which is not safe on a live excavator. By working in Simulink, we could model and simulate the design, make adjustments to optimize performance, and generate production code—all from our desks.”
“Model-Based Design enables engineers to develop, implement, and verify their software designs in a single environment through the use of graphical models for the algorithms and production code generation,” said Jon Friedman, automotive industry marketing manager at The MathWorks. “Engineering trade studies can be easily conducted by synthesizing and analyzing many different model topologies before implementing the best design. Additionally, the same models can be used to verify that an engineering change achieves the desired result in a single deployed environment. This reuse simplifies the design process and enables faster iteration cycles.”
For the INCOVA project, over 30 HUSCO engineers in three countries collaborated and communicated effectively through the adoption of Model-Based Design. “In the past, our systems engineers had to consider hardware details, such as the number of bits of accuracy, and worry about communicating the design to the software engineer. With MathWorks tools for Model-Based Design, the system engineer can focus on controls, not on the details of the target hardware,” said Hartman.
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