A new concurrent test framework for distributed Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation test system

In most Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation test systems, task scheduling algorithms (TSA) are used to support concurrent test to save test time and cost. However, prevailing TSA do not consider about the concurrent operation potential of hardware devices, thus pure TSA become no longer powerful enough to exploit the system concurrency when the system integrates more and more complex devices. Centralized Sharing Lock Concurrent Mechanism (Centralized SLCM, CSLCM) solves the problem by decomposing resource occupation status and maintaining working status. But for the fact that all sharing lock management work is assumed by a centralized coordinator will easily lead to performance bottleneck when there are more devices than expected. In this paper, a collaborative framework is designed to support sharing-lock-based concurrent mechanism. Centralized framework is extended to distributed one, thus CSLCM is replaced by Distributed SLCM (DSLCM). In this new framework, special algorithms are designed aspiring to solve problems like deadlock, request confliction, auto-configuration and etc. An example based on Chinese-Train-Control-System (CTCS) is carried out to demonstrate the correctness of all algorithms and components. In this example, the new framework saves about 38% of test time in compare to pure TSA under the same test condition.