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Talk-22: Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing

Stephanie Kemna, NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC)

Within the Cooperative Anti-Submarine Warfare programme at the NATO Undersea Research Centre, MOOS-IvP is used as the autonomy middleware for NURC’s two Ocean Explorer (OEX) autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). To verify computational load, benchmark performance, and to reduce the risk of errors due to differences between runtime and simulations, it is useful to test missions in a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) set-up. This talk discusses the intricacies of setting up such a HIL simulation. In runtime, the OEX’s PC-104 backseat computer is connected to the frontseat computer and on-board equipment, primarily via serial cables. In the HIL simulation, a desktop PC is used to simulate the data which is normally received via these serial cables. Rather than using serial cables, a local area network is utilized to enable running the HIL simulation from any desktop computer. Separating interface applications from data consumer applications greatly simplifies the process of switching between various input channels.

To keep the backseat mission files as close to runtime as possible, separate mission files are used for processes specific to the backseat, frontseat and viewer. Mission files are generated automatically using sets of configuration files, template files, and generation scripts. This automation system has shown to decrease mission creation time substantially, reduce the possibility of errors in mission files, and increased similarity between runtime and simulation backseat mission files. The result has been increased operator confidence in running backseat missions.

A reprint of this presentation, including the source code of several of the developed processes and utilities, will be made available through NURC, after the conference.


DOWNLOAD the brief given at MOOS-DAWG'11.

Categories:

  • MOOS-IvP
  • Anti-Submarine Warfare
  • Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) / Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs)
  • The Ocean Explorer UUV
  • Autonomy / Collaborative Autonomy