Automated Triple Pulse Testbed (ATPT) 1.0 – Large-Signal Hardware-in-the-loop Characterization Platform for Power Magnetics

Designing and characterizing magnetic components such as filter inductors are increasingly important for achieving optimized power converters. Due to the complicated material excitation response mechanisms, in-situ characterization is proven to be more reliable than utilizing the core loss data acquired from the traditional empirical model. Current research also indicates that core loss characterizing based on material is shown to be less accurate than measurement at the component level. Moreover, there are few core loss measurement methods that could perform a large-signal characterization that meets the industrial requirement without a complicated set-up or sophisticated procedure. To overcome these challenges, an automated magnetic characterizing platform based on a refined discontinuous test procedure called the Triple Pulse Test (TPT) is proposed. The testbed is used to characterize magnetic components with large-signal rectangular excitations and dc-bias current in a low-cost manner with reduced requirements of hardware. An automated version of this method, referred as the Automated Triple Pulse Testbed (ATPT), alongside the design considerations at both hardware and software levels are presented in the paper. The specific limitations of the large-signal testing condition such as the analysis of saturated current and the influence of demagnetizing effect are introduced. Measurement results generated from ATPT are verified against the open-source MagNet database.