Advantages and Challenges of Closed-Loop HIL Testing for Commercial and Off-Highway Vehicles

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing is used by commercial vehicle original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in several fields of electronics development. HIL tests are a part of the standard development process for engine and machine control systems. For electronic control units (ECUs), not only the HIL test of the hardware but also the controller software validation is very important. For hardware diagnostics validation, a dynamic simulation of the real system could be omitted and an open-loop test of the controller is sufficient in most cases. For most controller software validation including OBD (on-board diagnosis) tests, detailed but real-time capable models have to be used.

This article describes the needs and challenges of models in hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) based testing, taking into account the wide range of commercial and off-highway vehicles. Starting with the commonalities and differences in applications it lists the model requirements and different approaches in modeling for closed-loop HIL testing to help to find the most suitable models for the HIL application. Finally a comparison of testing and development between HIL and other testing areas is provided.