MathWorks announced that the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) has adopted MathWorks' model-based design solution to develop automatic flight control system (AFCS) software for helicopters that complies with the international aviation software standard DO-178C.

In the past at KARI, when researchers developed control laws, flight operation program software developers had to manually code and test. If even a minor misunderstanding occurred between the control law designer and the software developer, the probability of software errors would increase, and in some cases, those errors would not be discovered until the flight test phase.

KARI, which conducted the country's first helicopter automatic flight control system project, sought to build an environment that could not only generate code but also automatically verify and validate control law software to comply with DO-178C guidelines.

KARI developed a control law model containing submodels for basic stabilization and outer loop control, as well as mode switching, using MathWorks' Simulink, and combined it with the nonlinear motion model of the aircraft. Through this model, simulations were executed under conditions such as actuator and sensor failures, and simulation results were post-processed with MATLAB to generate detailed reports containing fuselage velocity, attitude, and actuator displacement according to pilot input.

Additionally, KARI researchers automatically verified and validated the control law software in an environment established through MathWorks Consulting Services. As a result, in response to urgent requests commonly received during the project, the automated process with model-based design reduced software modification time by up to 50%.

Furthermore, the research team generated code directly from the Simulink control law model using Embedded Coder, eliminating software bugs caused by misunderstandings between the control law designer and the software developer. Since DO-178C procedures were automatically reflected in the development and verification environment, developers without prior experience in DO-178C could automatically comply with the guidelines.

Dr. Kang Young-shin of KARI's Flight Control Research Team stated, "By utilizing MATLAB and Simulink, we were able to successfully complete the project within the deadline with significantly less time and cost for control law design and software development compliant with DO-178C."