Development of a New Research Platform for Electrical Drive System Modelling for Real-Time Digital Simulation Applications

This paper presents the research platform for real-time digital simulation applications which replaces the requirement for full-scale or partial-scale validation of physical systems. To illustrate this, a three-phase AC-DC-AC converter topology has been used consists of diode rectifier, DC link, and an IGBT inverter with inductive load. In this topology, rectifier as well as inverter decoupled and solved separately using decoupled method, which results in the reduced order system so that it is easy to solve the state equation. This method utilizes an analytical approach to formulate the state equations, and interpolation methods have been implemented to rectify the zero-crossing errors, with fixed step size of 100？μsec is used. The proposed algorithm and the model have been validated using MATLAB simulation as m-file program and also in real-time DSP controller domain. The performance of the real-time system model is evaluated based on accuracy, zero crossing, and step size. 1. Introduction The ever growing complexity and size of electric drives and their related mechanical loads [1] represent an important challenge for those responsible for their testing and verification. The considerations highlight the need for a thorough and exhaustive testing of the controls under conditions that are realistic [2]. For these reasons, it is customary that all controllers for high-power electric drives be tested in controlled laboratory conditions [2]. A recent alternative way of testing that is fast becoming quite popular is to use fully real-time digital simulation. These simulations can also be interfaced with industrial controllers, thus saving a lot of the investment cost and allowing an economic tool for drive controller testing and offering the flexibility needed to simulate machines in all power ranges [2]. The use of virtual system enables relatively easier interface of the drive systems to the computer, and it allows faster “online data and signal processing for analysis purposes.” Earlier hardware has been replaced by equivalent simulation model, and the same has been tested using controller, the so-called HIL. Recently, systems tested in real time fully digital simulation with controller as well as hardware using a simulation model [3]. Simulating a drive in real time starts with the problem of modelling the drive, and various works have been made in developing models of drives, most notably those in [1, 2, 4]. The authors of [4] have proposed an interesting alternative to modelling the drives using a state-space model that can easily be implemented using