Hardware-in-the-loop Set-up for Supervisory Controllers with an Application: the Prinses Marijke Complex

The development of supervisory controllers for cyber-physical systems is a difficult and error-prone process. Supervisor synthesis enables control designers to automatically synthesize a correct-by-construction supervisor from a model of the plant in combination with a model of the control requirements. To validate the behavior of the synthesized supervisor, model simulation is commonly used. While model simulation is a powerful tool for validation, it offers only a partial analysis. Aspects related to the execution of the supervisor on the hardware and communication with subsystems, such as human machine interfaces, cannot be validated with model simulation. To bridge the gap between model simulation and realization, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation can be performed after model simulation and before implementation. For HIL simulation, the controller realization and its subsystems are connected to a model of the plant. The purpose of this paper is to propose an engineering method that combines synthesis-based engineering with HIL simulation. Models created for synthesis are refined and re-used to obtain models for model simulation and HIL simulation. To illustrate this method, a case study is presented that demonstrates its application to the Prinses Marijke complex, consisting of two waterway locks and a storm surge barrier. The necessary models have been developed and implemented in an HIL set-up.