INDUSTRY

NATICK, MA -- The MathWorks, Inc. announces the availability of SimMechanics, a suite of tools for engineering design and simulation of mechanical systems within the Simulink(R) environment. The release of SimMechanics provides a major innovation for control designers modeling mechanical systems. SimMechanics and Simulink allow engineers to model a physical plant and simulate the controller in one environment. SimMechanics enables improved communication and collaboration between separate working groups such as mechanical engineers and control system engineers. With the ability to model both mechanical systems and their controllers in Simulink, the time and expense to build controllers for mechanical systems is dramatically reduced. The MathWorks has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from its SimMechanics customers. "Before we learned about SimMechanics, we set out to model the dynamics of a six degree of freedom satellite and estimated our development time to be about three weeks," said Marc Schafer, senior aerospace engineer. "Using SimMechanics, we built a model of the satellite and designed the controller. This took us no more than 4-5 hours. The results were astounding." SimMechanics provides controls engineers in the automotive, aerospace, robotics, industrial equipment, and manufacturing industries with new capabilities for the model-based design approach. For example, using SimMechanics engineers can analyze their designs early in the design cycle, allowing them to evaluate the performance of the system, make adjustments, and eliminate problems before committing to a detailed design. As a result, cost-savings and optimized development cycles are realized. "In today's competitive marketplace, engineers are designing increasingly complex and sophisticated controllers for mechanical systems," said Jay Sharp, physical modeling product manager at The MathWorks. "Now, market pressures mandate shorter development times with improved product safety and reliability. SimMechanics allows engineers to model and simulate their designs at the beginning of the design cycle. Then, they can test the behavior of their controllers with an accurate mechanical model. This ability to simulate the mechanical model with the control system reduces the need to build costly physical prototypes." Pricing and Availability SimMechanics version 1.0 U.S. list price starts at $4,000, with the total price for a MathWorks virtual prototyping seat (MATLAB, Simulink, SimMechanics, Virtual Reality Toolbox and Control System Toolbox) equaling $10,700. Additional information is located on The MathWorks Web site at www.mathworks.com.