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Accelerate testing of controls for electric power converters with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation

The trend towards renewable energy sources drives the need for efficient power electronics converters. Applications range from connecting distributed energy sources to the grid to electric propulsion and motion control. The development and testing of controllers for such applications can be time-consuming, expensive, and hazardous when using physical prototypes.

With the real-time simulation of power electronics, you can test power converter controllers faster and more safely, all while ensuring all functional, safety, and certification requirements. Set up such power electronics HIL simulation with Simulink® and Speedgoat, as follows:

“Thanks to MathWorks and Speedgoat tools we can focus on our objective of designing control systems for power converters."

Piotr Dworakowski, The SuperGrid Power Converters team leader 

  • Access more than a thousand electrical modeling components and examples in Simulink and Simscape Electrical™. Reuse power electronics models from desktop simulation to real-time at different levels of fidelity in the same Simulink environment
  • Extend your plant model with ready-to-use I/O driver blocks, capture high-frequency signals such as PWM from your controller, generate feedback signals such as quadrature encoder or resolver, and communicate over protocols such as SPI, I2C, EtherCAT, or CAN  
  • Monitor real-time signals including ripples and switching harmonics directly out of Simulink (on the CPU or FPGA)
  • Execute Simulink and Simscape Electrical models on multicore CPUs or FPGAs. Include switching dynamics for switching frequencies up to hundreds of kHz. Simulate state-of-the-art wide band gap semiconductors on FPGAs and reach simulation time steps below one microsecond and a resolution of PWM switching signals as low as 4ns with FPGAs  
  • Add more FPGA I/O modules to the system as your application grows, increasing the computational power and the number of I/O channels resources. The module can be interlinked through an Aurora high bandwidth low latency link
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Solar plant

Wind power

Inverter

Electric motor


Featured Application Use Cases

DC-DC Converters

Speed-up control development of DC-DC converters using real-time testing. Take advantage of ready-to-use examples from the library, such as buckboost, or SEPIC converters. Include switching in the range of hundreds of kHz for state-of-the-art wide bandgap semiconductors for both controls and HIL testing.

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Frequently Used I/O Interfaces

Simulink Application Resources 

Sub use case

Grid Side Inverters

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Model energy sources such as power cells or wind turbines, inverter, and utility grids in Simulink and Simscape Electrical. Test control hardware for solar inverters, grid-tied inverters or grid-forming inverters using HIL testing. Thoroughly test firmware and ensure grid code compliance against weak grid conditions, fault conditions and other extreme scenarios. Explore interference and grid stability when connecting multiple converters to a local grid.

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Frequently Used I/O Interfaces

Simulink Application Resources 

Electric Motor Drives

Test your electric drive controller safely using HIL testing with digital twins. Model your electric drive with inverter and electric motor blocks in Simulink or Simscape Electrical. Capture PWM signals from your controller as input to the plant model. Feedback current measurement signals and emulate motor position sensors such as quadrature encoder or resolver.

Frequently Used I/O Interfaces

Simulink Application Resources 

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Multi-Level Converters

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Develop modular multi-level converters (MMC) with Simscape Electrical blocks to run on high-performance CPUs. Perform HIL simulations of detailed MMC converters with hundreds of switching devices. Interconnect multiple real-time systems with the lowest latency links for even larger topologies. Analyze current ripples and power quality. Perform fault analysis safely and test any operating condition.

 

Frequently Used I/O Interfaces

Simulink Application Resources 



Testing Workflows​

Rapidly prototype control designs by applying rapid control prototyping, test embedded controllers with
hardware-in-the-loop simulation of digital twins, and leverage Speedgoat systems as embedded controllers.

Early Design
Rapid Control Prototyping
Implementation
Hardware-in-the-Loop
Embedded Deployment

Let us help you to find the right solution for your project

 

Request a Configuration Proposal

Get a proposal for a real-time target
machine configured to your needs.

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Request a Free Workflow Demo

Curious how to accelerate control design
innovation with a modular controller hardware setup?

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and application requirements.

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