Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation for Machines based on a Multi-Rate Approach

The commissioning of the entire control system using a digital shadow of the machine offers extensive advantages in industrial control engineering for machine manufacturers and machine integrators. The growing use of a Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation (HiLS) in the engineering process is accompanied by the steady increase in demands regarding model depth and model scope of the virtual machine. Especially in the area of material flow simulation, currently used simulation setups of HiL-Simulators reach their limits because of the limitation on a single simulation solver. This paper presents an approach on how a virtual machine could be realized based on several interlinked simulation solvers connected by a multi-rate approach to increase the model depth and model scope.