What is HIL TEST and how much does it cost?

I bought MATLAB and SIMULINKs for BMS modeling and simulation

(SOC, SOH, Cell Balancing, etc.)

But I didn't know there was such a thing as HIL-TESTING

What is HIL-TESTING and how much does it cost?

Answer 1

[Harshit Gupta]

As per my understanding, you have the following two queries:

1. What is HIL Testing, and how can it be performed in Simulink?
2. If there is a specific MathWorks product for the same, how much does it cost?

Solution:

1. Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testingis a testing technique that is often used while developing different systems to reduce development work and improve the effectiveness of testing.

In Simulink, you can perform HIL testing by making use of Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations. It is a technique for validating your control algorithm, running on an intended target controller, by creating a virtual real-time environment that represents your physical system to control. HIL helps to test the behavior of your control algorithms without physical prototypes. You can refer to the following documentation links for more information on HIL Simulations and for the different workflows scenarios where it can be employed:

• https://www.mathworks.com/help/simscape/ug/what-is-hardware-in-the-loop-simulation.html
• https://www.mathworks.com/discovery/hardware-in-the-loop-hil.html
• https://www.mathworks.com/help/simscape/ug/hardware-in-the-loop-simulation-workflow.html

2. There is no specific product for performing HIL testing, and the products you need for the same would depend on your use case and the workflow that you are following.

Answer 2

[Diego Kuratli]

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) is a technique that allows testing embedded controllers without the physical plant. In the case of a Battery Management System (BMS), the real-time system emulates the behavior of the battery cells. By being connected to a real-time system, the BMS "thinks" that it has been connected to real battery cells. This allows testing the BMS controls in a safe environment, and in various scenarios, without the risk of damaging the battery cells.

There are several real world behaviors that cannot be easily simulated without having the hardware connected, e.g.: electric noise, short-circuits, wiring and connections, wrong/mismatching bitrates and timing for communication interfaces.

There are two types of hardware-in-the-loop testing:

1. Controller HIL: the BMS and real-time systems are connected using low-voltage signals and communication networks. E.g., the real-time system runs a model of the battery cells, but there aren't high voltage connections. The battery cell voltage values are exchanged between BMS and real-time system via communication interfaces such as Ethernet or CAN, or low voltages (typically +/- 10V).
2. Power HIL: the real-time system includes a battery cell emulator. The BMS includes the power converters, whcih are wired to the battery cell emulator.

For best integration with MATLAB and Simulink, the recommended product for HIL testing is Simulink Real-Time which is designed to work with Speedgoat real-time test systems.

Learn more about battery cell emulation: Battery Emulation | Speedgoat