Retrofitted test bench for testing analog controllers implemented by field programmable analog device

A real-time control bench is retrofitted to provide the facilities for the testing and designing of analog controllers implemented by integrated circuit (IC) chips. The IC chip works on the principle of field programmable analog device (FPAD) whereby adjustment of controller parameter can be executed within several microseconds in real-time. Design of the test bench is based on the concept of hardware-in-the-loop simulation (HILS) which allows physical plants to be replaced by the simulated target processes. The usage of the retrofitted test bench is demonstrated by a system comprising of a linear plant model, which is built using MATLAB Simulink library blocks plus a linear controller implemented by a FPAD based chip. Some practical data generated by the test bench are included.