Dynamic performance of mechanical-level hardware-in-the-loop simulation

This paper discusses dynamic behavior, stability and performance issues of the mechanical-level hardware-in-the-loop (MHIL) simulation. A special interest is in the cases where a real-time multi-body mechanics simulator is used to produce load dynamics to HIL hardware. The transfer functions describing the HIL system dynamics are created and presented. The analysis using transfer functions, the simulation results and test results using actual MHIL simulation are presented. The analysis shows that the performance and stability of the device under test cannot be concluded without case by case analysis of HIL-setup as a whole.