Case Study: Continental achieves faster ECAS development—eliminating six months of hardware effort and 90% automated code generation with MathWorks Model-Based Design

Continental Develops Electronically Controlled Air Suspension for Heavy-Duty Trucks

Continental was tasked by a leading truck manufacturer to develop an electronically controlled air suspension (ECAS) for heavy‑duty 40‑ton trucks that met 1,360 stringent system requirements and ensured driver safety and comfort. Facing tedious, error‑prone manual requirements tracking and slow handwritten C development, Continental partnered with MathWorks and adopted its Model‑Based Design tools (MATLAB, Simulink, Stateflow and related toolboxes).

Using MathWorks tools—including Simulink Requirements, Simulink Coder, Simulink Real‑Time, Fixed‑Point Designer and Embedded Coder—Continental modeled and simulated the ECAS, traced requirements to the design, created a real‑time prototype, and automatically generated production code for the target microcontroller. The MathWorks‑based workflow eliminated about six months of hardware development effort, reduced verification time by roughly 40–50%, and automatically generated about 90% of the application code, enabling earlier in‑vehicle testing and faster production readiness.

Continental

Thomas Ehl

Senior Manager of Software Development for Commercial Vehicle Control Units