Case Study: Volvo Construction Equipment achieves faster, lower-cost product development with MathWorks real-time Simulink solutions

Volvo Construction Equipment Streamlines Product Development with a Real-Time, Human-in-the-Loop Simulator

Volvo Construction Equipment needed a way to evaluate complex hydraulic, mechanical, and control-system designs without building costly physical prototypes and to assess operator experience in real time. MathWorks provided the modeling and real-time toolchain—including Simulink, Simscape (and Simscape Fluids/Multibody), Simulink Real-Time, Simulink Coder, Simulink Control Design, and MATLAB—that enabled a human-in-the-loop Virtual Machine Simulator (VMS) for early-stage, full-system evaluation.

Using MathWorks software, Volvo CE integrated hydraulic, engine, mechanical, and controller models, generated C code, and ran real-time simulations on target hardware to support controller-in-the-loop and rapid prototyping. The VMS reduced the number of prototype builds by an anticipated 30–50%, sped up field-issue diagnosis and resolution, shortened development lead times through controller tuning in simulation, and improved overall product quality.

Volvo Construction Equipment

Jae Yong Lee

Chief Engineer