Hardware-in-the-loop engine simulation for electronic control units based on the dSPACE system

Modern electronic control units (ECU) for engines become more complicated, but their cycles of development become shorter. Thus ECU hardware-in-the-loop engine simulation comes to be adopted in their development process. The paper introduces their principle, necessity and basic form, along with software and hardware of the dSPACE system and basic modeling methods and develops a single-cylinder diesel engine model for ECU hardware-in-the-loop engine simulation using the MATLAB/Simulink; ECU hardware-in-the-loop engine simulation experiments are carried out, showing that it is a useful tool in the development and measurement of ECU.