An Integrated Simulation Module for Cyber-Physical Automation Systems

Abstract

The integration of Wireless Sensors Networks (WSNs) into Cyber Physical Systems (CPSs) is an important research problem to solve in order to increase the performances, safety, reliability and usability of wireless automation systems. Due to the complexity of real CPSs, emulators and simulators are often used to replace the real control devices and physical connections during the development stage. The most widespread simulators are free, open source, expandable, flexible and fully integrated into mathematical modeling tools; however, the connection at a physical level and the direct interaction with the real process via the WSN are only marginally tackled; moreover, the simulated wireless sensor motes are not able to generate the analogue output typically required for control purposes. A new simulation module for the control of a wireless cyber-physical system is proposed in this paper. The module integrates the COntiki OS JAva Simulator (COOJA), a cross-level wireless sensor network simulator, and the LabVIEW system design software from National Instruments. The proposed software module has been called “GILOO” (Graphical Integration of Labview and cOOja). It allows one to develop and to debug control strategies over the WSN both using virtual or real hardware modules, such as the National Instruments Real-Time Module platform, the CompactRio, the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA), etc. To test the proposed solution, we decided to integrate it with one of the most popular simulators, i.e., the Contiki OS, and wireless motes, i.e., the Sky mote. As a further contribution, the Contiki Sky DAC driver and a new “Advanced Sky GUI” have been proposed and tested in the COOJA Simulator in order to provide the possibility to develop control over the WSN. To test the performances of the proposed GILOO software module, several experimental tests have been made, and interesting preliminary results are reported. The GILOO module has been applied to a smart home mock-up where a networked control has been developed for the LED lighting system.

Novel Networked Remote Laboratory Architecture for Open Connectivity Based on PLC-OPC-LabVIEW-EJS Integration. Application in Remote Fuzzy Control and Sensors Data Acquisition

“…As it is noted, the LabVIEW package is a versatile tool extensively applied for data acquisition and monitoring purposes in diverse technological and scientific fields [81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90]. Furthermore, LabVIEW is very often used in RLs devoted to control and automation.…”

Computational Intelligence for Simulating a LiDAR Sensor

“…One way to carry out these simulations is using a co-simulation framework that takes into account physical dynamics, control software, computational platforms, and communication networks, which is crucial for designing CPSs for autonomous driving (Zhang et al 2014;Artuñedo et al 2015). Cosimulation is essential for CPSs due to virtual prototyping, capable of properly emulate actor-sensor nodes with their own hardware specifications (Ferracuti et al 2016). Moreover, virtual prototyping can take advantage of different modelling languages/tools and integrate them together for evaluating the behaviour of CPSs.…”

Integration of Sensors, Controllers and Instruments Using a Novel OPC Architecture

“…A challenging issue is to avoid the shortage of spectrum resources that might become a bottleneck for the IoT [ 16 ]. Wireless control systems bring advantages in terms of installation complexity, lack of wiring and related costs, enhanced reconfiguration capability of the system, and so on [ 17 ]. With sensing goals, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) take advantage of wireless communications to deploy networks of smart sensors, very used in the IoT and CPSs.…”