MathWorks Announces Release 2016a of the MATLAB and Simulink Product Families

Introduces major new updates to speed working and collaborating with MATLAB

MathWorks introduced Release 2016a (R2016a). This release includes the MATLAB Live Editor, which offers the ability to write, run, and modify code in a single interactive environment to accelerate exploratory analysis, and App Designer, an environment that simplifies the process of building MATLAB apps. R2016a also includes a number of new features in Simulink to help speed model development and simulation, as well as updates and bug fixes to and all other products.

The Live Editor offers a new way to create, edit, and run MATLAB code. Results and graphics are displayed together with the code that produced them in a single interactive environment, speeding exploratory programming and analysis. Now, scientists and engineers can add formatted text, mathematical equations, images, and hyperlinks to create an interactive narrative that can be shared with others.

App Designer provides an enhanced design environment and UI component set for building MATLAB apps. It integrates the two primary tasks of creating an interactive application – laying out the visual components, and programming the behavior of the app. The generated code is object-oriented, which makes it easier to share data between the different elements of the app, and the compact structure makes it easier to understand and maintain. 

Additional MATLAB product family updates include:

• MATLAB: New multiple y-axis plots, polar plots, and equation visualization

• MATLAB: Pause, debug, and resume MATLAB code execution

• Neural Network Toolbox: Deep learning with convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for image classification tasks using GPU acceleration in Parallel Computing Toolbox

• Symbolic Math Toolbox: Integration with the MATLAB Live Editor for editing symbolic code and visualizing results, and converting MuPAD notebooks to live scripts

• Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox: Classification Learner app that trains multiple models automatically, visualizes results by class labels, and performs logistic regression classification

• Control System Toolbox: New and redesigned apps for designing SISO controllers, automatically tuning MIMO systems, and creating reduced-order models

• Image Acquisition Toolbox: Support for Kinect for Windows v2 and USB 3 Vision

• Computer Vision System Toolbox: Optical character recognition (OCR) Trainer app, pedestrian detection, and structure from motion and bundle adjustment for 3-D vision

• Trading Toolbox: Transaction cost analysis for trading, sensitivity, and post-trade execution

Simulink product family updates include:

• Simulink: Start page for starting or resuming work faster by accessing templates, recent models, and featured examples

• Simulink: Automatic solver option to set up and simulate your model more quickly

• Simulink: Simulation of system models targeting heterogeneous devices such as Xilinx and Altera SoC architectures

• Simulink: Simulink units to specify, visualize, and check units at interfaces of Simulink, Stateflow, and Simscape components

• Simulink: Variant Source and Sink blocks for defining and propagating variant conditions to connected functionality with compiler directives in generated code

• Aerospace Blockset: Standard cockpit instruments for displaying flight conditions

• SimEvents: New discrete-event simulation and modeling engine with event-actions, MATLAB discrete-event system object authoring, and Simulink and Stateflow automatic domain transitions

• Simscape: New equation reduction and simulation technology for faster simulation and run-time parameter tuning in generated code

• Simscape Fluids: Thermal Liquid library for modeling systems with liquids whose properties vary with temperature

• Simulink Design Optimization: Sensitivity Analysis Tool using design of experiments, Monte Carlo simulations, and correlation analysis

• Simulink Report Generator: Three-way model merge for graphically resolving conflicts between revisions within a Simulink project

Signal Processing and Communications updates include:

• Antenna Toolbox: Dielectric modeling for analyzing substrate effects in antennas and finite antenna arrays

• RF Toolbox: RF Budget Analyzer for computing gain, noise figure, and IP3 for cascaded RF components

• SimRF: Automatic RF Testbench generation

• Audio System Toolbox: A new product for designing and testing audio processing systems

Code Generation updates include:

• Embedded Coder: Compiler directive generation for implementing signal dimensions as #define

• HDL Coder: HDL-optimized FFT and IFFT that support frame input for giga-sample per-second (GSPS) design

• HDL Verifier: PCIe FPGA-in-the-Loop for simulating algorithms on Xilinx KC705/VC707 and Altera Cyclone V GT/Stratix V DSP development boards via the PCI Express interface

Verification and Validation updates include:

• Polyspace Code Prover: Support for long-double floating point and improved support for Infinity and NaN

• Simulink Design Verifier: Automatic test generation for C code S-functions

• IEC Certification Kit: IEC 62304 medical standard support for Simulink Verification and Validation

• Simulink Test: Author and execute real-time tests with Simulink Real-Time

R2016a is available immediately worldwide.

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