An architecture for robotic hardware-in-the-loop simulation

Hardware-in-the-loop simulation is an increasingly popular engineering, tool for its effectiveness in maintaining a balance between the two competing demands of., a) well designed and thoroughly tested systems, and b) reduced development time and costs to remain competitive. This paper proposes an architecture for applying hardware-in-the-loop simulation techniques to the design and testing of robot manipulators. Potential benefits of this architecture include allowing concurrent development of hardware and control system components and providing a reusable platform for reconfigurable manipulators through a generic and modular structure. An implementation of this architecture in the preliminary, phases of development is presented, here to demonstrate how these benefits can be realized.