Are you new to HIL Testing Electric Drives?
Introduction
Electric Motor drives are accelerating
As electric motor drives continue to increase in performance and functionality, motor drives manufacturers are struggling to keep existing product lines relevant.
There is pressure to reduce: 1) development cost, 2) lifecycle maintenance costs, and 3) time to market to stay competitive.
Enabling OEMs and system integrators to simplify and speed up motor drives design and testing have never been more important. From electric vehicles and electric trains, all the way to wind turbines and industrial automation, electric motor drives are accelerating the global shift to efficient and sustainable energy systems.
To design and test motor drive embedded controllers, as control software size and functionality is ballooning, Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) and model-based design practices are becoming critically important.
HIL testing (and MIL/SIL/HIL model-based software testing in general) helps design and validate embedded software (e.g. industrial drives software, automotive ECUs software, wind turbine software etc.) using simulation to 1) shorten test time, 2) reduce cost of testing, 3) improve test coverage (especially for test cases that are difficult to recreate in the lab including a variety of fault conditions), 4) improve repeatability, and 5) improve overall software quality.
Benefits of Mode-based Software Testing with HIL
Medium Voltage Synchronous Machine Drive
HIL Model Example
Model highlights |
- Mains Circuit Breaker controlled through Modbus
- 3-level Active Front End Converter (switching model)
- DC Link with a Braking Chopper, Pre-charge circuit controlled through Modbus
- 3-level NPC Inverters drive the synchronous machines
- Nonlinear machines with fluxes as functions of current magnitudes
- Machine Excitation Control implemented in signal processing, current reference provided through Ethernet Variable Exchange
