Virtual Prototyping

Behzad Samadi, PhD

Mechatronics3D

It All Started with LEGO!

LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT

LEGO^®

LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3

LEGO^®

Visual Programming

NXT-G

LEGO^®

Open Software

Open Hardware

Bicycle

Razyeh Mousavi

Ballbot

NXTway

Hamid Bazargani
NXTway-GS

Ball on Plate

Electronics Stability Control

Reza Azimi
NXTway-GT

LEGO MINDSTORMS

It was very exciting at first but I had more than 40 students and only 3 sets of LEGO Mindstorms!

Amazing Journey

We realized that before making the robot, there were a lot of things that we needed to learn.

Operating System

Virtual Robot

3D Animation

Controller Design

How About a Virtual LEGO Set?

This virtual robot is interesting but what if I want to build another robot?
How hard is it to build a virtual robot?

Causal Modeling

Writing the dynamic equations
Converting the equations to ordinary differential equations
Creating a signal flow model e.g. a Simulink model
Building a virtual robot seems to be different from building a real robot

Virtual LEGO Set

What if we had a set of virtual LEGO parts and we could build a robot with them?

Virtual LEGO Set

We made one!

ODE (Open Dynamics Engine)
IrrLicht (Visualization)

Alborz Gharraee

Acausal Modeling

Modelica and MapleSim

The connections between components are physical connections like position, voltage, flow,...
Acausal modeling is very similar to building a real system

Electrical Systems

Mechanical Systems

Hydraulic Systems

Thermal Systems

Chemical Systems

Acausal Modeling with MapleSim

Functional Mockup Interface

Model Exchange, Co-Simulation, Product Lifecycle Management
There are over 35 Tools supporting FMI

Courtesy of ITAE

Model Based Development

The V Diagram

from engineering.com

Trial and Error

Expensive, time consuming, not reliable

Model Based Approach

Model Based Development

Saves resources, time, money

Courtesy of ITAE

Old Approach

Easy: build the model and design the controller in a high level environment like MATLAB
Hard: rewrite your code for the hardware controller on the physical prototype
Problem: rewriting the code is time consuming and error prone

Modern Approach

Software in the Loop

The controller and the virtual prototype are two different applications.
The applications "talk" to each other using a "middleware".
The controller doesn't see the difference between the virtual and physical prototypes.
Software engineers do not have to wait for the hardware!