An Example of Modelica–LabVIEW Communication Usage to Implement Hardware-in-the-Loop Experiments

Modelica is a very powerful language to simulate a very large set of systems, including electrical, thermal, mechanical, fluidic, control, and has already been used very extensively for several purposes, as the several Modelica conferences testify. Despite of this large literature, no paper seems to be available regarding the use of Modelica for real-time applications or hardware-in-the loop (HIL). This is a field where applications may be very fruitful. In this paper, the possibility of creating mixed software–hardware experiences (i.e., HIL), through combination of a Modelica program, the related simulation tool, a LabVIEW program, and the corresponding hardware is demonstrated. This demonstration is made using as an example a partial simulator of an electric vehicle running in a stand-alone PC, which communicates via User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packets with another PC running the LabVIEW program, which in turn is physically connected with the hardware-under-test. The obtained results are satisfying, given the inherent delay times due to the UDP communication.