Experience with use of HIL simulators in control engineering course

Abstract

The goal of the paper is to share experience with the use of hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulators in a control-engineering course being taught at the University of West Bohemia. The hardware simulators were introduced recently in the course curriculum aiming to get more realistic application scenarios for the students. They allow simple explanation of the concepts of model-based systems engineering in a form close to the workflow used in industrial practice. The achieved results show some significant benefits when compared to former course content, which relied on numerical simulations only. The paper presents one of the application use-cases dealing with the problem of active car suspension control. Individual phases of the control system development as done by students are explained step by step, revealing the main benefits of the hands-on experience with the physical setup.