HIL and virtual test reduce test times and save money

摘要

Perhaps the most active test topic at this year's SAE World Congress was hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test. The topic was well covered on the show floor, where several companies were exhibiting products for HIL test, as well as in the technical sessions, where many papers covered the topic. In addition, the related topics of simulation and virtual test were also the subject of several papers. An example of the papers presented on HIL test is "Development of Transmission Hardware-in-the-Loop Test System" (paper 2003-01-1027) written by two engineers from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI, San Antonio, TX; http://www.swri.org) and two engineers from General Motors. The authors note that developers have traditionally relied on vehicle and engine-driven testing to evaluate new transmissions, but this approach has many drawbacks: Using prototype vehicles to test new transmissions means waiting months for prototype vehicles to be bui vehicle tests are notoriously unrepeatable; weather conditions vary from one test to another; and human drivers don't always drive in a repeatable way.