[protoserge]

The Mathworks has supported FIRST in the past. A few years ago, we were able to get a few licenses of MATLAB, Simulink, and a some toolboxes. We may have gone through an unconventional path since we deal with NI and The Mathworks on a regular basis at work. Unfortunately, we weren't able to devote enough time with all of our other duties to really utilize the software.

I would love to see it become a standard offering with FRC-specific training and sample models for calculating trajectories, force-damping problems, motor/gearbox torque calculators, etc. With a good modeler, the possibilities of apps for designing robots are really limitless. For instance, there could be a MATLAB app that allowed for adjustments in width/length/wheel selection and showed the calculations for scrub force and torque requirement of the gearboxes.

LabVIEW is more prominent in industry with regard to graphically programmed control systems, which is what many of the FRC robots use. Some of the actual modeling of the control systems is primarily can be done with Simulink and then converted into LabVIEW using the NI Control Design and Simulation Module. There are certain idiosyncrasies in translating the code that may make this a more challenging approach than using the NI offering in the first place.

There are other software packages out there for modeling as well. Some additional examples that my [work] team and I have looked at include Wolfram SystemModeler, Maple, and LMS (Siemens) AMESim. All have their strengths and most can interface with NI hardware with various levels of efficacy.

At the end of the day, the software in FRC for control has to be able to interface with NI hardware. This theoretically can be done using xPC Target for Simulink and the NI drivers. How well this works has yet to be tested for FRC as far as I am aware.