Case Study: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology achieves 80% faster powertrain development with MathWorks

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Students Design Hybrid Vehicle Powertrain

Rose‑Hulman Institute of Technology students entered the Challenge X competition to design a hybrid vehicle powertrain and gain multi‑year, real‑world engineering experience. Faced with modeling complex interactions among engine, motors, batteries, brakes and control logic, the team used MathWorks tools—including Simulink, Simscape Driveline, Stateflow and MATLAB—to replace weeks of manual differential‑equation work with a Model‑Based Design approach.

Using MathWorks’ workflow (Simulink/Simscape Driveline for the plant, Stateflow for supervisory control, MATLAB for analysis, and Simulink Coder to generate DLLs for real‑time testing), Rose‑Hulman reduced powertrain development time by 80%, rapidly identified and fixed unstable controller modes, simplified control logic, and enabled hardware‑in‑the‑loop testing. The result was faster iteration, validated component choices, and valuable industry‑ready experience for students—several graduates now working at companies such as General Electric and Caterpillar.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Zac Chambers

Faculty Coadviser