Case Study: Maplesoft reduces rover development time with Altair real-time HIL solution

MapleSim Breaks New Ground in Hardware-in-the-Loop Real-Time Simulation for Planetary Rovers

Maplesoft faced long, costly development cycles for planetary rover prototypes because full system testing typically occurred late in the process. To overcome this, Maplesoft (working with Dr. Amir Khajepour, the University of Waterloo, and the Canadian Space Agency) developed a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) test platform using Maplesoft’s MapleSim modeling and simulation tool — a case study presented by Altair.

Altair highlights how the MapleSim-based solution provided high-fidelity, computationally efficient multidomain models that were integrated with LabVIEW Real-Time and NI PXI to run real-time HIL simulations. The platform enabled automatic generation of rover kinematics, solar-power estimation, modular component libraries, progressive hardware integration, safer testing of hazardous scenarios, and power-optimized path planning—significantly reducing overall development time and accelerating validation and deployment.

Maplesoft