A Novel Algorithm for Design and Hardware Implementation of FPGA-Based Real-Time Simulator for Electrical Machines in HIL Applications

Electrical machines are one of the most important elements in power systems. To design and optimize electrical machines and attached drivers, real-time simulators with hardware-in-loop capability can be employed. Real-time simulator is a hardware module which interacts with other physical systems in real-time, and therefore, can replace the electrical machine in performing the required experiments even before assembling the first prototype. This saves time, money and enables optimal design. This paper proposes a real-time simulator for three-phase induction machines. The techniques presented here can be applied to other machines as well. The proposed solution incorporates novel mathematical methods in solving the corresponding differential equations in real-time as well as novel FPGA-based architecture, and as a result, solves the equations in 32-bit floating-point in 110 ns time-steps.