June 25, 2012 -- Somewhat similar to automotive development, in the space industry the design, building and testing of planetary rover prototypes is extremely expensive, and system testing typically does not occur until late in the design/ testing process, leading to a long, protracted development time.

In response to such timing issues, Amir Khajepour, Canada Research Chair in Mechatronic Vehicle Systems and engineering professor in the Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering department at the University of Waterloo (Canada), and his team worked with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Maplesoft, to develop a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test platform for solar-powered planetary rovers.

By Tina George. (George is with Maplesoft.)