Case Study: École Centrale de Lyon develops industry‑ready engineers and competition‑winning robots with MathWorks

Students Learn in the Classroom, in Competitions, and on Research Projects at École Centrale de Lyon

École Centrale de Lyon faced the challenge of helping incoming engineering students connect theoretical training with hands‑on practice across courses, competitions, and research. To address this, the school standardized on MathWorks tools — notably MATLAB, Simulink, Stateflow and multiple specialized toolboxes — so students could perform numerical analysis, modeling, simulation, and rapid prototyping throughout the curriculum.

MathWorks delivered a Campus‑Wide License (access to 50 MathWorks products) and integration of its tools into lectures, labs, the French Robotics Cup, and faculty research. Students used simulation to design systems, generate roughly 2,000 lines of C code for robot deployment, and prototype research devices, resulting in improved career preparedness, stronger campus‑wide collaboration, and active success in robotics competitions.

École Centrale de Lyon

Paule Blanchart

Senior Lecturer