Design of a mechatronic system for application of hardware-in-the-loop simulation technique

摘要

Classical approaches, using Simulation analysis technique, use a controller model that can – or not – becoupled with a plant model. Usually, the controller and plant models are connected, in a closed-loop behavior,and this kind of Simulation is called Software-in-the-loop Simulation (SIL). However, recently, some directionsare being assumed and some recent works deal with Simulation considering the real controller, instead of thecontroller model, in the closed loop behavior with the plant model and this kind of approach is called Hardwarein-the-loop simulation (HIL). In order to study and to propose some rules about the simulation of real-timesystems considering HIL simulation, at the Automation Laboratory of the Centre for Mechanics and MaterialsTechnologies of the University of Minho, Portugal – a workbench especially devoted to this study is beingdeveloped. This workbench considers an environment for Simulation, and the respective programming language,and a real controller that interacts with the simulation environment running on a PC. After looking at theavailable software tools and modeling languages, Dymola simulation environment and Modelica modelinglanguage were chosen. The main reasons for this choice are associated with the unique multi-domain engineeringcapabilities of Dymola and Modelica that allow to deal, on the same environment, with many differentengineering domains like hydraulics, power train, thermodynamics, air-conditioning, vehicle dynamics,mechanical, electrical, electronic, control, thermal, pneumatic, among others... As real controller, the choice wasa Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) from OMRON company, the CPM2A model. This paper presents thefirst step, of this ongoing work, and is focused, mainly, on studying how to exchange information between a realPLC (used, as controller, on the designed workbench) and Dymola software that will run specific plant models,developed in Modelica language, on a Personal Computer.