A Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation Platform for a High-Speed Maglev Positioning and Speed Measurement System

In order to solve the testing and verification problems at the early development stage of a high-speed Maglev positioning and speed measurement system (MPSS), a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation platform is presented, which includes induction loops, transmitting antennas, a power driver unit, a simulator based on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a host computer, etc. This HIL simulation platform simulates the operation of a high-speed Maglev train and generates the related loop-induced signals to test the performance of a real ground signal processing unit (GSPU). Furthermore, an absolute position detection method based on Gray-coded loops is proposed to identify which Gray-coded period the train is in. A relative position detection method based on height compensation is also proposed to calculate the exact position of the train in a Gray-coded period. The experimental results show that the positioning error is only 2.58 mm, and the speed error is 6.34 km/h even in the 600 km/h condition. The proposed HIL platform also effectively simulates the three kinds of operation modes of high-speed Maglev trains, which verifies the effectiveness and practicality of the HIL simulation strategy. This provides favorable conditions for the development and early validation of high-speed MPSS.