MathWorks announced an update to MATLAB and a new version of Simulink, "Release 2026b (R2026b)."

The company said R2026b adds three new products: Simulink Variant Manager, Visual Inspection Toolbox and Polyspace Test Server. Capabilities were also strengthened in aerospace, embedded systems, AI, perception, audio engineering and statistical analysis.

The company said modern engineering systems are closely combined with software, electronics and AI. As a result, engineering teams face increasingly complex tasks, including managing multiple design alternatives and configurations and validating designs. R2026b focuses on solving these issues.

Simulink Variant Manager manages growing product variants across complex models and system architectures. The company said this enables users to strengthen consistency, traceability and collaboration throughout the development process.

Visual Inspection Toolbox combines AI and image-processing technologies. It simplifies the development and deployment of visual inspection applications for manufacturing and industrial sites. A newly added Point Cloud Toolbox expands LiDAR, camera, radar and SLAM-based application workflows.

Polyspace Test Server automates C/C++ embedded software testing and code coverage analysis in continuous integration environments. It reduces the burden of manual verification and supports compliance.

With this update, MATLAB supports TOML-based project files, package management via File Exchange and Google Sheets integration. Simulink provides AI-based profiling insights generated by Simulink Copilot. In Deep Learning Toolbox, PyTorch models can run alongside MATLAB and Simulink.

Avinash Nehemiah (아비나시 네헤미아), head of product management and marketing for design automation at MathWorks, said, "R2026b supports engineering teams by enabling them to connect design, simulation, test and deployment workflows." He said it reduces time spent managing complexity and helps teams move faster from concept stages to real product development.