Development and Control of Virtual Plants in a Co-Simulation Environment

Virtual plants represent one of the most versatile instruments in the teaching-learning process of control courses since they may replace expensive laboratories or real plants. This work proposes a methodology to use the 3D simulator V-REP and Matlab for the construction, communication, and control of virtual plants in a co-simulation environment. The implementation of the ball-and-plate system shows the control possibilities and the differences by working with ideal-model simulations and using specialized platforms to include unmodeled physical phenomena. Using two simple controllers, the results show how the real-based experiments produce unexpected and challenging responses that should be corrected with distinct control strategies.