• The STVF cluster has 6 RT-LAB target nodes. The simulation runs in parallel on 5 of these, at a sampling rate of 1 kHz. The other one serves as the development computer for building the distributed simulation.
• The CART cluster has 5 RT-LAB target nodes. Two simulations run on a pair of PC, one for each arm. When the two arms are collaborating in manipulating an object, the two simulations are completely unaware of one another.
• The Research cluster has a pool of RT-LAB target nodes. Many nodes have I/O cards that are needed to interface with the different robots / manipulators. A node is not necessarily tied to a particular manipulator and can be re-used for other simulations.

Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator Task Verification Facility (STVF)

This test bed has a 6 degree-of-freedom hydraulic rigid manipulator that simulates the behavior of the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM), now known as the Canadian hand "Dextre", which is a 7 DOF flexible electric manipulator that operates in zero gravity. The purpose of this test bed is to validate future operations in space that involve contact manipulations with the SPDM on the International Space Station, for example, extracting and inserting orbit replacement unit (ORU).

A cluster of 6 RT-LAB Engineering Simulators handles the control of the hydraulic manipulator and senses the forces and moments during contact manipulations. It runs synchronously with the Mobile Servicing System Operations and Training Simulator (MOTS), causing the hydraulic manipulator to reproduce the SPDM's movement (generated by MOTS and an operator) and feeds the contact forces back to the MOTS simulator, causing the SPDM simulation to react to those forces. The RT-LAB Engineering Simulator also controls the ORU tool change-out mechanism installed at the manipulator's end-effectors, and controls the lights, camera and pan-tilt units for visual feedback for the operator.

CSA's Automation and Robotic Test bed (CART)
This test bed has two 7 degree-of-freedom electric manipulators, set up as a dual-arm robotic system. It allows engineers to perform research and development in different fields such as redundant manipulators, trajectory and task planning, obstacle avoidance, force control and other advanced control strategies, collaborative manipulations, vision tracking, and satellite capture.

Two-Mass Test Bed
This robot was used as a proof of concept, to gain expertise and validate control techniques in order to operate the future STVF manipulator. A classic textbook two-mass-spring system was built with high precision instruments and sensors to facilitate the identification of the system and to apply different control strategies.

3-DOF and 1-DOF Robots
These versatile electrically-driven robots, equipped with force/moment sensors, allow contact and force control operations.

Mechatronics Test Bed
This test bed controls two motors connected together by a torque meter. This setup allows optimization of the control strategy for the first motor while the second motor simulates the load applied on the first motor. This behaves as if the first motor was a joint directly attached to a link of a manipulator.

Schilling TITAN II Arm
This industrial hydraulic Schilling robot was stripped from its original controller and now has an RT-LAB Engineering Simulator controlling it. This allows different control strategies to be readily applied to the system.

Micro-Satellite Attitude Control System
RT-LAB is used in the hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing of micro-satellite Attitude Control System (ACS). The ACS was completely modeled in MATLAB/Simulink and it consists of three modules:

• spacecraft environment (magnetic, orbit, drag, sun position)
• ACS sensors and actuators
• and flight computer