Model-Based Software Development for Vehicle Systems at Crown Equipment

Crown Equipment designs and manufactures the majority of its forklifts and components, including electric motors, drive units, power units, cylinders, electronic modules, and wire harnesses. In addition, Crown develops vehicle application software in-house, and the Vehicle Systems Group supports software development for all of Crown’s North American and European manufactured lift trucks. In 2011 the group established a goal to transition to Model-Based Design using simulation and code generation tools from MathWorks. After many iterations and a few MATLAB^® releases, Crown has a simulation environment that matches the vehicle performance and is building all vehicle systems application software including that for electric steering, traction control, hydraulic load handling systems, and vehicle diagnostics.

Note: Simulink Verification and Validation transitioned to Simulink Check, Simulink Coverage, and Requirements Toolbox in R2017b.