Low-cost Hardware-in-the-loop Testbed of a Mobile Robot to Support Learning in Automatic Control and Robotics*

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) systems are recognized to be effective tools to support teaching in Controls, especially in laboratory courses, rather than only simulations, since a more realistic student experience is achieved with no need of the use of a real equipment. This naturally leads to a better use of the resources for both the students and the university facilities and a reduction of costs invested in laboratory equipment. This paper presents a low-cost HIL application for a mobile robot to support learning in Automatic Control and Robotics. It consists of a simulator of the robot, which is built by means of physical modeling tools in the MATLAB®/Simulink® environment, and an Arduino Yún board. The communication between the simulator and Arduino is done by TCP/IP. For illustration purposes, some examples of possible control coursewares to be carried out using the developed testbed are given.