Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation of Constraint Elements in Mechanical Systems

To simulate constraint elements of mechanical systems like joints or bearings in their environment a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) simulator is proposed. It couples a real joint with a numerical simulation of its environment by means of an actuator system and sensors. The actual application standing behind this investigation is HiL testing of hip endoprostheses with respect to their dislocation behavior. HiL simulations allow the analysis of real system components in a virtual environment controlled by a computer and are thereby particularly advantageous if test conditions in the real environment of the system component are either too complex or impossible to apply like in vivo investigations of dislocation scenarios. As a preliminary research two fundamental variants for the coupling between the real joint and the simulation of the environment are discussed and experimentally demonstrated.