Has anyone used a speedgoat with sensors and actuators to test a SIMULINK-designed flight controller as a RCP/HIL?

I am currently trying to develop an Iron bird testbed for an UAV to test its harware components and evaluate the real-time capabilities of the designed flight controllers using a speedgoat. I was thinking of using a rate gyro sensor (for pitch rate feedback), a servo (acting as an elevator), and testing a simple pitch rate controller feedback using the speedgoat to communicate with harware and SIMULINK and test the designed closed loop pitch controller. I was wondering if anyone has done anything similar- designing control algorithms in Simulink and leveraging a Speedgoat target computer as a prototype for the final controller, and/or test hardware components (Rapid Control Prototyping- RCP)? I'm eager to know what has been done and how :)

Thanks.

Answer 1

[Dimitri MANKOV]

Hi Jesus,

You can find several success stories here showing projects in which Speedgoat real-time target machines and Simulink Real-Time have been used for Harware-in-the-Loop testing and Rapid Control Prototyping. In particular, I believe that the Scientific Aviation Association (FVA) in Aachen, Germany worked on an iron bird project similar to yours, see here.

Best,

Dimitri

[J]

Hi Dimitri,

Thanks for the link. I've seen that project in the past but they don't provide much details to understand exactly how they did things. I doubt they have their project open-source... It's nice to know what they are doing though- similar to what I am trying to do in the near future- but I wish there was like an open-source project for RCP or HIL simulation using the speedgoat and SIMULINK (i.e. a baseline/framework) that people can start with when trying to do RCP/HIL/Iron Birds designs.

[Dimitri MANKOV]

Hi Jesus,

Such models depend a lot on the I/O interfaces and devices used in the project. Speedgoat provides a tailored test model with every target machine that they deliver, containing an example configuration of the driver blocks for the I/O modules installed in it. Making a Simulink model run in real-time on a Speedgoat target machine is just a matter of combining your original model with the right driver blocks from the Speedgoat I/O Blockset, and clicking a single button :-)

In addition to that, there are tutorial videos and product examples available that should help new users to get started efficiently.

I hope this is helpful!

Dimitri