Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) systems require reliable control architectures to achieve autonomous
and repeatable flight under realistic operating conditions. To support controller development
while reducing the cost and risk associated with field experiments, a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL)
platform for closed-loop validation of external flight controllers is presented. The proposed setup
combines a high-fidelity kite dynamics model executed in real time, with a Ground Control Unit
(GCU), wireless communication modules, and physical actuators. The platform is assessed in
terms of computational performance, communication latency, and path-following capability. The
results show that the proposed HIL setup sustains real-time operation and enables stable closed-
loop tracking of ten figure-eight trajectories, providing a practical intermediate validation stage
between offline simulation and flight testing.