MBDA Accelerates Actuator Design with Integrated Multiphysics SPICE Simulation
Automated SPICE Model Integration Enables Faster Design and Accurate Power Analysis
MBDA developed an automated workflow that integrates SPICE models into MATLAB and Simulink. The workflow also unifies electrical and control system modeling.
Key Outcomes
- MBDA reduced modeling time through automated SPICE-to-Simulink integration.
- MBDA improved design accuracy by capturing detailed electrical and multiphysics interactions.
- MBDA enabled earlier system-level validation, leading to fewer design iterations and more reliable simulations.
While designing an actuator system for a missile program, the Controls & Automation team at MBDA Italia S.p.A. needed to detect peaks in electrical power during flight. Accurate measurement of these peaks was critical to avoid sizing errors in the actuator system; an undersized system could fail to meet power demands, while an oversized system could increase weight and reduce efficiency.
The actuator system uses a high‑performance dual‑phase DC‑DC boost converter. Although the supplier provided a detailed SPICE netlist, it was not directly compatible with the Simulink® environment that MBDA used for electromechanical design. To address this incompatibility, MBDA developed an automated workflow that integrates SPICE models into MATLAB® and Simulink. The workflow also unifies electrical and control system modeling.
The approach uses PSpice® for circuit modeling, TINA‑TI for validation, Simscape™ for physical system representation, Simulink Control Design™ for control integration, and MATLAB for automated netlist processing. A custom MATLAB script converts the SPICE netlist into a Simscape model, preserving circuit topology and parameters. The script also applies the appropriate initial conditions to ensure numerical stability and produces a ready‑to‑use model for system integration.
The team then incorporated the converter model into a full multiphysics actuator model that spans the electrical, mechanical, and control domains. This enabled them to predict power consumption over time, including switching effects and transient dynamics. They validated the Simulink model against PSpice and TINA‑TI, with consistent results across both transient and steady‑state conditions.
