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The RemoteLink effort supports the U.S. Army's objective for developing and fielding next generation hybrid-electric combat vehicles. It is a distributed soldier-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop environment with a 6-DOF motion base for operator realism, a full-scale combat hybrid electric power system, and an operational context provided by OneSAF. The driver/gunner crewstations rest on one of two 6-DOF motion bases at the U.S. Army TARDEC Simulation Laboratory (TSL). The hybrid power system is located 2,450 miles away at the TARDEC Power and Energy System Integration Laboratory (P&E SIL). The primary technical challenge in the RemoteLink is to operate both laboratories together in real time, coupled over the Internet, to generate a realistic power system duty cycle. A topology has been chosen such that the laboratories have real hardware interacting with simulated components at both locations to guarantee local closed loop stability.

In this paper, a distributed driver-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop simulator is described with a driver on a motion simulator at the U.S. Army TARDEC Ground Vehicle Simulation Laboratory (GVSL). Realistic power system response is achieved by linking the driver in the GVSL with a full-sized hybrid electric power system located 2,450 miles away at the TARDEC Power and Energy Systems Integration Laboratory (P&E SIL), which is developed and maintained by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The goal is to close the loop between the GVSL and P&E SIL over the Internet to provide a realistic driving experience in addition to realistic power system results. In order to preserve a valid and safe hardware-in-the-loop experiment, the states of the GVSL must track the states of the P&E SIL.

The power system for the Future Combat System's (FCS) family of manned ground vehicles will not only need to satisfy mobility requirements, but also need to provide continuous and pulsed power for weapons, armaments and other auxiliary loads. Investigating hybrid power technologies has been an active research area for the U.S. Army RDECOM's Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) Power and Energy System Integration Laboratory (P&E SIL). The P&E SIL is located in Santa Clara, CA and is maintained by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Current P&E SIL efforts include imposing realistic loads on notional combat vehicle subsystems in order to evaluate components, such as motors and batteries.