Networked Robotic System Simulation Platform: Hardware-in-the-Loop Architecture, Enabling Technologies and Implementations

The recent progress in robotic communications and networking demands novel simulation platforms for development and verification, especially for deep-coupled control and communication co-design in networked robotic systems (NRS). This paper analyzes the challenges and requirements of robotic communications and networking simulations. It is shown that the popular tools of software simulation and field test may hardly fulfil the fidelity, reproductivity and flexibility demands. Therefore, this paper proposed a novel hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) architecture for networked robotic system simulation platform (NRS-SP), which may strike a beneficial tradeoff between fidelity, reproductivity and flexibility. The enabling technologies of NRS-SP are discussed and a full-fledged prototype is implemented to illustrates its potential to support the simulation, development and verification of next generation networked robotic systems.