This paper presents the results of Pilot Assisting Module research performed on two light aircraft flight simulators developed in parallel at Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic, and Rzeszow University of Technology, Poland. The first simulator was designed as an open platform for the verification and validation of the advanced pilot/aircraft interface systems and inherited its appearance from the cockpit section of the Evektor SportStar. The second flight simulator, the XM-15, has been built around the cockpit of a unique agriculture jet Belfegor. It introduced a system architecture that supports scientific simulations of various aircraft types and configurations, making it suitable for conceptual testing of Pilot Assisting Module. The XM-15 was initially designed to support research on advanced flight control systems, but due to its continuing modernization it evolved into a hardware-in-the-loop test-bed for electromechanical actuators and autopilot CAN based controller blocks. Pilot-in-the-loop experiments of proposed Pilot Assisting Module revealed favorable operational scenarios, under which the proposed system reduces the cockpit workload during single pilot operations.

The complexity of power system phenomena challenges power system protection testing to obtain the required adequacy of the testing environment. Hardware-in-the-loop simulation in real-time substantially increases testing capabilities. However, there is still the question of the availability of commercial solutions. To address the challenges, a new hardware-in-the loop system has been designed and implemented utilizing the easily available Matlab/Simulink environment and Linux RT Preempt OS. The custom software part prepared for the presented system is based on the Matlab/Simulink s-function mechanism, Embedded Coder toolbox and Advantech biodaq library as the interface for the utilized I/O cards. The simulator’s real-time performance limits on Linux RT Preempt have been verified, and it was shown that its performance is sufficient to conduct successful tests of protection relays. Consequently, a simple power system protection relay testing example is provided, including a discussion of results. Finally, it has been proven that the presented system can be utilized as a simpler and more accessible hardware-in-the-loop testing alternative to commercial simulators.

In recent years, the Steer-by-Wire (SBW) technology has been gaining popularity and replacing classical steering systems. It plays the most crucial role in autonomous cars where the vehicle must perform maneuvers on its own without driver’s intervention. One of the key components of this system is the steering wheel angle sensor (SAS). Its reliability and performance may affect driver’s life and health. The purpose of this paper is to show a test system to comprehensively evaluate the performance of the steering wheel angle sensor in the SBW system during real-world maneuvers and show how SAS parameters such as accuracy of angle, angular speed etc. affect car trajectory resulting in hit cones.
For this purpose, a test system was built, with the use of virtual test drives based on CarMaker software, CANoe and VTSystem hardware. In order to evaluate its performance, the errors introduced by the system were determined. Additionally, using the realised test system, three commercial steering wheel angle sensors were tested and compared during a virtual test drive. Their errors were determined, as well as their performance in the SBW technology and the consistency of the obtained results with the parameters declared by the manufacturer were verified as well.