Modelica and Arduino-based hardware-in-the-loop simulation of a nuclear-powered engineering ship

Hardware-in-the-loop simulation (HILS) can enhance the authenticity and reliability of offline simulation at the design stage, and reduce the risk of equipment performance commissioning for complex systems. This paper focuses on the HILS of the control mechanism of a nuclear-powered engineering ship including a two-loop nuclear power system, an electric power system, and a mechanical system. In the software part, the mathematical model is implemented in Modelica language with OpenModelica. The nuclear power system is demonstrated in steady-state referring to the Japanese nuclear power merchant ship “NS Mutsu” and is debugged under transient conditions with the help of an operation control module. The electric power system and mechanical system were developed to have certain functions for marine engineering. In the hardware part, the system is built based on an Arduino microcontroller, the Modelica open-source library, and a Bluetooth-based communication protocol between the computer and the microcontroller. The study proved that HILS is capable of simulating the multi-physical joint operation on the software level, establishing the real-time action response and data feedback between the software and hardware parts, and completing steady-state as well as various transient simulations.