Hello, Virtual World! Will the high-speed indicating system sensor cluster revolutionize the “In-The-Loop Testing” of Engines and Powertrains?

Power Hardware-In-The-Loop Testing is a testing technology resulting from the interaction between power-driven real world components and simulated virtual world components as mediated by networks of sensors and actuators in real-time. In this paper the engine at the engine testbed constitutes the real world component. It is augmented by virtual components (clutches, transmissions, electric motors, chassis,…). Together they represent the Unit Under Test (UUT), a System of Systems (SoS). The overall objective of this testing approach is to contribute to a system driven test process, to support a more continuous, progressive and pervasive testing and to get complex decision making situated with proper and smarter tests at the right time. There are numerous challenges in designing how the real and virtual components merge into a SoS and the accuracy and performance of the approach is often impaired by signal communication delays, sensor noise and insufficient RT-performance of the “installed base”. Our contribution incorporates the central idea that a modular data acquisition platform for high-speed applications is used to generate high-performance RT-data-stream into the virtual world. Based on specific receding algorithms of the specific state variables, “unwanted” oscillations are filtered out without any phase delay. The adherence to conservation laws is thereby assured.