Press Release

Opal-RT Technologies Inc. Announces New Licensing Program for Educational Users

March 13, 2003, Montreal - Opal-RT Technologies Inc., leaders in real-time simulation technologies for engineering simulation and hardware-in-the-loop testing, has launched a new licensing and pricing scheme for their products that will allow educators and students to access this industrial-strength technology for instruction and project work at a price that will suit most departmental budgets.

Named RT-LAB Solo, the program consists of a special version of RT-LAB, tailored to suit the needs of the educational community, with special pricing for the base system and its add-on modules. For the RT-LAB Solo program, the cost is only $800.

"While RT-LAB is being used extensively in industrial applications, such as gas-turbine control, automotive ECU development and testing, and modeling of electrical drives, we were seeing a growing demand for this type of technology in the educational market, particularly in the fields of Mechatronics and Control," said Paul Goossens, VP Marketing at Opal-RT, "However, not every school has the budget to purchase the industrial version. Therefore, through judicious use of the modular structure of the software and close collaboration with our academic customers, we believe that we have come up with a solution that provides everything an educator or student will need to support their instruction through course work and lab-based projects - and at the right price."

RT-LAB Solo still retains the core capabilities of the commercial version - Host/Target architecture, simple graphical user interface, full integration with MATLAB/Simulink and MATRIXx, high-speed data-logging, multirate execution and support for over 80 I/O interface boards - but has the more industrial-oriented features removed, such as multiprocessor support, embedded boot-up and XHP (eXtra High Performance) mode. There is, however, an upgrade path to access these modules if needed.

As well as a very attractive base price, RT-LAB Solo introduces multiple-license discounts that bring the price per seat down even further in order to equip a laboratory with several licenses of RT-LAB at the lowest possible cost.

"This licensing scheme is great news for teachers of Dynamics and Control like me," said Prof. Brent Gillespie, University of Michigan, "since my students are gradually more comfortable with RT-LAB than with DOS-32 programming with interrupts and some rather ugly legacy code, I anticipate increased use of this technology in our labs."

About Opal-RT Technologies Inc.
Opal-RT provides software, hardware, and related solutions for real-time simulation applications, with the aim of enabling real-time parallel processing through flexible and affordable technologies.
The company offers a full range of engineering simulation products - from enabling technologies to turnkey engineering simulators - and consulting services that include systems integration, software development, simulation and modeling, problem-solving, and training. Opal-RT's core expertise is in distributed hard-real-time simulation, with experienced engineers designing real-time simulators for automotive, electrical power, aerospace, robotics, and other industries where fidelity and fault tolerance requirements push rapid prototyping and hardware-in-the-loop testing to their limits. Opal-RT's unique approach integrates parallel, distributed computing with commercial-off-the-shelf technologies. The resulting RT-LAB product range enables customers to develop simulations quickly, easily, affordably, and competitively. For more information about Opal-RT's range of Engineering Simulators and Distributed Processing Tools, see www.opal-rt.com.

About RT-LAB
RT-LAB is the real-time technology that revolutionizes the way model-based design is performed within the engineering organization. Through its openness, RT-LAB has the flexibility to be applied to any simulation and control problem, and scalability to provide a low-risk entry point for any application, allowing the developer to add computation power where and when needed-whether to dramatically speed up simulations or for real-time hardware-in-the-loop applications.

Kirsty Whitefield
Tel: 1-877-935-2323, x235
Email: kirsty.whitefield@opal-rt.com