Visualization and interactive simulation of Modelica models for control education

An approach to the implementation of virtual-labs well-suited for control education is proposed. The virtual-lab model is described in the Modelica language and it is adapted for interactive simulation by applying a systematic methodology. The virtual-lab view (i.e., the user-to-model interactive interface) is composed by connecting predefined components of Interactive, a free Modelica library presented in this manuscript. Interactive contains a set of ready-to-use Modelica models of visual interactive elements (i.e., containers, animated 3D geometric shapes and interactive controls), intended to facilitate easy definition of the virtual-lab view and the model-to-view communication. Finally, the Modelica description of the virtual-lab is translated into executable code using the Dymola modeling environment. The interactive component models provided in the Interactive library are C++ code generators: when the virtual-lab is executed, the C++ code describing the virtual-lab view and the bidirectional model-to-view communication is automatically generated. The generated C++ code uses the VTK and Qt libraries. The proposed approach is illustrated by means of an example: the development of the virtual-lab of a double-pipe heat exchanger, which is intended for chemical-process control education.