A Virtual Testbed for the Development and Verification of Cyber-Physical Systems

This paper presents a virtual testbed for the development and verification of cyber-physical systems, integrating network simulation, physics, and hardware emulation within the multi-domain simulation framework VEROSIM. The testbed facilitates comprehensive software-in-the-loop testing, enabling accurate and reliable evaluation of control algorithms in complex, interconnected systems. The integrated approach simplifies simulation setup and model management, while allowing natural treatment of mobility and the use of sophisticated physical radio wave propagation models. The testbed also enables the simulation of various fault scenarios, supporting the assessment of system resilience and fault-tolerant strategies. A case study involving a capsule approaching the International Space Station demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed testbed in capturing the interactions between software, hardware, and physical elements, and verifying the overall behavior of a cyber-physical system under adverse conditions.