A scoping review of In-the-loop paradigms in the energy sector focusing on software-in-the-loop

Abstract

Software-in-the-Loop (SIL) testing is an approach used for verification and validation in the energy sector. However, there is no comprehensive overview of the application, potential, and challenges of SIL within this sector. Therefore, this paper conducts a thorough scoping review of the existing literature within the scope of SIL and related in-the-loop approaches in the energy sector. A total of 88 full-text articles from four significant databases ACM, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, and Web of Science are analyzed and categorized to map the purpose, methods, architecture, interoperability and protocols, technologies, challenges, and limitations. The results present a grand perspective of in-the-loop across several domains followed by an analysis of SIL in the energy sector. The application domains carry characteristics from complex systems, systems-of-systems, cyber-physical systems, critical systems, real-time systems, and sociotechnical systems. The energy sector and the automotive industry are amongst the most applied domains. Within energy- and electricity systems, hardware-based in-the-loop paradigms are mostly applied for testing low-level signaling, and SIL is used for control strategy testing, optimization, dispatching, and experimentation. The examined SIL architectures have distributed-, real-time, and closed-loop properties, and are constrained by specialized simulation power hardware. Future research should address how to systematically develop SIL testing environments with guiding principles to support application development for the future digitalized energy system.

Evaluation of SiL Testing Potential—Shifting from HiL by Identifying Compatible Requirements with vECUs

“…However, the implementation of SiL environments depends on overcoming technical limitations, an aspect that is often not mentioned in the existing literature. Furthermore, as indicated by [11], the scope of these sources is limited to functional and behavioral aspects, simulation modeling, and optimal control modeling, which represent only a fraction of the relevant areas in the broad field of software development and testing. As a result, an SiL cannot test all the functionalities that a HiL is capable of assessing.…”

“…In the field of SiL, various papers have been published pursuing various research objectives. A comprehensive overview is provided in the work by Clausen et al [11]. Their paper discusses, among other topics, the application domains in which SiL environments have been utilized.…”

“…However, the limitations of SiL discussed in the papers analyzed by Clausen et al [11] are not exhaustive. Specific limitations mentioned include the development process, aspects of real operational conditions, validation, interoperability, real-time requirements, scalability, and a cost-benefit analysis.…”