From ECUs to actuators, Cruden has made adding controller hardware to a driving simulator, or integrating a driving simulator with a test rig, a quick and simple affair for customers, as recently demonstrated by the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences.
Cruden has developed a time-saving integration package that combines hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) set-ups and driver-in-the-loop (DIL) simulators, which increases the potential of simulation in automotive research and development. An example of a Cruden driver simulator merged with a dSPACE HIL set-up was recently commissioned at the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences in Germany, where students can integrate any hardware they like into their Cruden driving simulator.
HIL set-ups, for the purpose of testing sensors, controllers and actuators for example, often rely on synthetic or pre-recorded input signals that lack the typical closed loop behavior of a human driver. DIL simulators on the other hand include that interactive driver but may have imprecise models of the actual hardware, because specific components are either too complex to simulate in full detail or controllers have many unknowns, coming as black boxes from suppliers. To further complicate the situation, companies and institutions then often end up using multiple independent and unrelated simulation setups at the same time, necessitating validation of multiple models and correlating data from these setups before being able to use it for the actual research and development task at hand.
The Cruden-delivered solution combines the company’s Panthera simulator software’s open architecture and flexibility with the near endless hardware interfacing capabilities of dSPACE hard real-time (HRT) systems and the open and real-time-capable dSPACE ASM (Automotive Simulation Models) simulation tool suite, to create the ultimate development and testing system. dSPACE and ASM become the third point in a triangle where they have direct communication with the simulator motion system and the Panthera software, which is the main simulation engine. Cruden’s Panthera ePhyse HRT toolbox includes a Simulink block set optimized for use on the dSPACE system. It is an integrated solution to setup IO between the dSPACE platform and the simulator environment. In the combined system, initializing the simulator session is as simple as selecting the ASM model of choice and clicking a start session button in the GUI, which activates all relevant subsystems in the setup.
Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences utilizes its dSPACE-Cruden system for both educational and research purposes within its mechanical engineering and mechatronic departments. The development cycle of any mechatronic component consists of three main stages: model in the loop, software-in-the-loop and hardware-in- the-loop. “For us, there was a gap because the driver is not involved in any of these three stages,” says Marian Göllner, research assistant at the Ostfalia university and member of Professor Liu-Henke’s research group for control engineering and automotive mechatronics. “We feel that the only way to achieve a complete and valid simulation is to gain drivers’ feedback throughout the development process. To do this we purchased a Cruden DIL simulator, which is now the fourth and final stage of our simulation cycle.”
Read more here, about how Cruden’s proprietary Panthera software suite manages the complete integration of the Cruden AS2 driving simulator, the dSPACE Scalexio hard-real-time system and the dSPACE ASM vehicle model at a Chinese OEM with the world’s first driving simulator integrated with a wet bench testing rig.
