A novel controller design methodology for uncertain non-linear hardware-in-the-loop simulators

This paper describes a new methodology for the design of control systems for hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) simulators. A HWIL simulator consists of a subset of hardware from a real object interfaced to a control system, with the goal of matching the closed loop behaviour of the simulator to that of the complete object. The simulator design problem is qualitatively different from the standard control design problem; while classical control design aims to reduce uncertainty in plant behaviour, controllers in HWIL simulators must instead match simulator behaviour to the behaviour of the real object, which are both sensitive to the underlying uncertainty in the hardware. This represents a new design challenge that has not yet been addressed in the literature. The design method presented here is general and non-heuristic, and is applicable to a large class of uncertain, non-linear systems. The method is based on the computation of a sub-optimal solution to an optimisation over the space of possible controllers. Experimental results are presented that verify the practicality of the design method.