Author Description

Hardware-in-the-loop simulation (HILS) is a technique that takes some physical components of a system and combines them with a computer simulation of all its remaining aspects. HILS combines many of the advantages of physical and analytical prototyping and has been successfully applied in a wide range of engineering fields. This thesis proposes a generic and modular Robotic Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation (RHILS) architecture for the design and testing of robot manipulators and their controllers. The underlying concept of the architecture was fully developed and then implemented for a standard industrial manipulator. This implementation was evaluated against the physical prototype of the robot to determine its capabilities as a simulation and design tool. The RHILS platform performed well and was able to simulate the manipulator under normal and aggressive operating conditions, and exhibited significant potential as a design tool for both the robot and its control unit.