Editor’s Pick: Maplesoft Extends Connectivity to Tools from National Instruments

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

Remember that scene is the movie “Jerry Maguire” when the guy in the elevator tells his girlfriend that she completes him? Today’s Pick of the Week will be like that for many of you. Maplesoft’s new MapleSim Connector for LabVIEW and NI VeriStand does just that. It completes the loop,  hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) that is. In a nutshell, what the MapleSim Connector does for you is make HIL testing and simulation faster and more accessible.

Now, what the MapleSim Connector does is let you integrate MapleSim’s multi-domain modeling and simulation environment into NI’s widely deployed LabVIEW graphical programming environment for developing test,  measurement, and control applications and the NI VeriStand environment for configuring real-time testing applications such as HIL test systems. What this means is that you can develop and optimize complex engineering system models in MapleSim then automatically convert your code blocks for LabVIEW virtual instruments and NI VeriStand applications. Your model’s code is fully optimized for high-speed, real-time simulation.

One of the advantages of this linkage is that you get to leverage the MapleSim symbolic mathematics engine to create complex,  multidomain models that are relatively small. The key is the symbolic mathematics nature of the resultant models. MapleSim reduces model size by simplifying the equation set to what is necessary for the job. This produces powerful simulations that execute more quickly and efficiently than iterative numeric approaches.

The other big advantage is that you can test your HIL design without sacrificing fidelity or relying on almost-like components from a library of predefined stuff. So, the combination of MapleSim Connector and LabVIEW or NI VeriStand means that you can build and test your HIL applications with efficient, powerful simulations that approximate your real-world needs as much as possible.

Now, I am long enough in the tooth to remember LabVIEW first appearing as a tiny ad buried in BYTE magazine. It took one engineer telling the next that they had to check out this thing. Now, only MS Office rivals LabVIEW for ubiquity. I have this gut feeling that the MapleSim Connector for LabVIEW and NI VeriStand is also one of those sleeper products that you’ll look back on and scratch your head and wonder how you got by without it.

You can get the lowdown on MapleSim Connector for LabVIEW and NI VeriStand from today’s Pick of the Week write-up. Hit the link at the very end of the new product write-up to go to the Maplesoft website. Smack in the middle of your screen will be a (registration-free) 2:40-minute video demoing the use of the MapleSim Connector to build a vehicle control test with HIL. You’ll then see how it completes your simulation efforts easily and efficiently. Worth every second of your time.

Thanks, pal.—Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Read today’s Pick of the Week write-up.