Case Study: ITK Engineering achieves IEC 62304–compliant, production-ready sensorless BLDC dental drill controller and halves development time with MathWorks

ITK Engineering Develops IEC 62304–Compliant Controller for Dental Drill Motor with Model-Based Design

ITK Engineering faced a tight timeline to develop an IEC 62304–compliant, sensorless brushless DC (BLDC) motor controller for high‑speed dental drills without a prototype motor available. To meet requirements for a rotor‑position estimator and cascade control across a wide speed range, ITK turned to MathWorks’ Model‑Based Design approach using Simulink and related MathWorks tools to design and verify the controller before hardware was ready.

Using MathWorks products (Simulink, Stateflow, Embedded Coder, Fixed‑Point Designer, Simulink Coverage, Symbolic Math Toolbox and MATLAB), ITK modeled the motor and controller, ran closed‑loop simulations, converted to fixed point, automated unit tests and generated over 5,000 lines of production C for an ARM Cortex‑M3. The MathWorks‑enabled workflow halved development time (about four months), exposed hardware issues early, helped ITK win the contract, increased client confidence, and delivered a first‑time‑right controller now in series production.

ITK Engineering

Michael Schwarz

Senior Engineer for Medical Control Systems