Tools cut costs of armoured vehicle upgrades

Automatic code generation tools from The MathWorks are being used by Thales Optronics to upgrade armoured vehicle optronics systems as part of its contract with the Ministry of Defence.

Automatic code generation tools from The MathWorks are being used by Thales Optronics to upgrade armoured vehicle optronics systems as part of its contract with the Ministry of Defence on the Battle Group Thermal Imaging (BGTI) programme.

The software is used to design prototype models of inertial navigational systems in the BGTI equipment and automatically generate C code to execute these in real time.

This significantly reduces the cost and time taken to develop the optronics systems compared with traditional methods that use hand-written code.

To develop the BGTI equipment, Thales has to design embedded control systems for fire control ballistics and stabilised electronic sites on armoured vehicles, such as tanks or personnel carriers.

These prototype models are built in Simulink, The MathWorks' graphical modelling package, translated into high quality C code by Real-Time Workshop, The MathWorks' code generation tool, and targeted to a standard PC platform using xPC Target, a prototyping environment that executes Simulink models in real-time.

The process of automatic code generation accelerates the testing and validation of algorithms used in the models, enabling Thales to rapidly produce concept developments.

"The MathWorks' automatic coding tools have enabled us to produce the concept development for an inertial navigational system in a quarter of the time taken using hand-written code", said Matthew Love, Principal Engineer (Stabilisation and Control) at Thales Optronics.

"Automatic code generation eliminates the errors of hand-written code and allows 'what if' testing, which is impractical with hand coding.

The MathWorks' tools are now being used to factor in development effort for future bids, enabling us to reduce timescales and costs even further".

Using xPC Target, Thales is able to reduce the debug timescale for the prototype designs and remodel systems to a day instead of a month.

The company now uses auto coding tools as the standard tool for the rapid development of all embedded control systems.

It is continuing to work with The MathWorks to increase the xPC drivers and tool set to allow expansion of current model designs.

xPC Target offers access to a wide range of I/O blocks for Simulink models and can be used with almost any PC platform, including industrial and desktop computers, Compact PCI and other PC compatible architectures.

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