Case Study: Edwards Air Force Base achieves 16× faster flight-test data analysis with MathWorks MATLAB and Parallel Computing tools

Edwards Air Force Base Accelerates Flight Test Data Analysis Using MATLAB and Parallel Computing

Edwards Air Force Base conducts long-duration Global Hawk flight tests that generate up to 20 GB of sensor data per flight and historically relied on a 30-year-old Fortran system (UFTAS) that was slow to configure and too time-consuming to meet tight turnarounds. To accelerate processing and make program setup easier, Edwards turned to MathWorks tools, including MATLAB along with Parallel Computing Toolbox and MATLAB Distributed Computing Server, to build a modern data-analysis workflow.

Using MATLAB (their MUFTAS implementation), Simulink, and MathWorks’ parallel computing products on a 16-processor cluster, the team ran maneuvers in parallel and validated dynamics with SIDPAC estimations. The MathWorks-based solution delivered a one-for-one speedup with processors—16× faster on a 16-node cluster—enabled parallelization in minutes, and cut flight-test program setup from six weeks to under one week, allowing analysts to complete in hours what once took days and informing acquisition decisions.

Edwards Air Force Base