Integrated Cloud and Hardware-in-the-Loop Framework for IoT-Based Control and Monitoring

This work introduces a Cloud-in-the-Loop approach that combines Internet of Things (IoT) devices with Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation for testing control and monitoring applications. The proposed architecture employs a three-level hierarchical structure: the first level simulates the Battery Energy Storage System and local power flow control on a Digital Sampling Processor microcontroller, the second level uses an ESP32 microcontroller for Controller Area Network (CAN) communication and data transmission to the cloud, and the third level, implemented with an online broker, enables data storage, analysis and commands. A simplified power flow model and a battery model representation are considered to evaluate long-term operation with one year of climate and load data. Two load management strategies were compared: (i) total load shedding at 0% State of Charge, and (ii) hierarchical load disconnection at predefined SOC thresholds. Results showed that the hierarchical strategy increased the average State of Charge by 25.2% (54.66% vs. 43.64%), prevented interruptions to critical loads. The results show that the proposed framework serves as a flexible step before real deployment, since its cloud-based functions remain unaltered while only the physical hardware is replaced. This approach reduces implementation problems and allows the methodology to be extended to various case studies.