A Hardware-in-the-Loop-on-Chip Development System for Teaching and Development of Dynamic Systems

This paper proposes a low-cost on-chip Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) platform for teaching and fast prototyping of dynamic systems. A dual-core digital signal controller (DSC)-based solution is proposed for the HIL system. CPU core A, as the simulation engine, is dedicated to circuit and system simulation. The actuation and control logic are implemented in CPU core B, which is working as the control engine. Inter-processor communication is used to interchange variables between the CPUs. The digital-to-analog converter and digital outputs are used to send the duty cycle and system state variables to the oscilloscope for users’ visual feedback. Two typical systems with fast and slow dynamics are modeled and implemented in the simulation engine. Under the excitation generated by the control engine, system dynamics can be observed for studying purposes. Close-loop control for a buck converter is also demonstrated on the developed prototype, where both input voltage and load variations performance are tested. The test results indicate that the digital simulator can well emulate the average small signal model of a power converter in open-loop and close-loop scenario. Meanwhile, the control parameters can be modified for system performance evaluation and education purposes. The proposed low-cost HIL system can be easily applied to the engineering teaching as well as fast prototype development phase of product design.