The event was an opportunity to learn from MATLAB and Simulink experts, hear about real-world customer successes, and discover the latest industry trends. After indulging in the coffee and bacon butties on offer, The EXPO opened with the keynote titled ‘Are you ready for AI? And is AI ready for you?'
Reminiscent of a Steve Jobs announcement, the excellent Rick Hyde from Mathworks presented a captivating speech to a sea of over 500+ engineers and scientists. Hyde highlighted the trend of AI across the sectors with particular examples in Manufacturing, Digital Twinning and Predictive Maintenance.
Post keynotes, the remainder of the day was divided up into tracked sessions. There was a distinct machine learning theme to many of the presentations and a strong manufacturing application to many talks. The math geeks amongst the IDC (myself included in this category) attended a master class on ‘Analysing Time Varying Signals’ which shed some light on the use of wavelet filters and spectrograms for pre-processing data ready for learning algorithms whilst some of the newer members to the IDC took the opportunity to learn more about MATLAB with attendance at the ‘Intro to MATLAB’ talk.
During the lunch break, there were many demonstrations stands showcasing the range of capabilities of MATLAB products. The break also gave an excellent opportunity to view the racetrack and take selfies overlooking the pit stop area.
The day was finished with two excellent presentations around the use of Simscape. Dr Lewis Rees from Reaction Engines talked through their use of modelling the SABRE (Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) with Simscape and gave some excellent real-world tips and advice on problems faced and overcome in rocket development. Steve Miller from MathWorks wrapped up with an informative example of integrating mechanical design and multidomain simulations within Simscape.
