Hardware-In-The-Loop (HIL) Simulation Used for Testing Actuation System of a 2-DOF Parallel Robot

Abstract

This paper focuses on the subject of Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulations from mechatronic systems design perspective. HIL is a real-time simulation where real subsystem parts of a complex engineering system are coupled together with the numerical models of the remaining subsystems to form its complete representation. In a HIL simulation there are three main components: simulated components, dedicated hardware systems and real components. An impediment in using this method is the high cost of necessary hardware. The paper presents an economical alternative to existing dedicated hardware systems by using the development board FiO Std. Using this board, a HIL simulation aimed at analyzing the control and actuation system of a 2-DOF parallel robot is presented in this paper. The HIL simulation includes two models: a target model (running on FiO Std board) and a host model (running on MATLAB/Simulink). The dynamic model of the robot mechanical structure (simulated part) is implemented in host model and then coupled together with two servo-motors (real parts) through target model to form a complete representation of the studied system.