Characteristics and Design of Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulations for Electrical Power Systems

This paper presents a compendious summary of power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) simulations that are used for designing, analyzing, and testing of electrical power system components. PHIL simulations are an advanced application of real-time simulations that represent novel methods, which conjoin software and hardware testing. This contribution outlines necessary requirements for the implementation of PHIL simulations, which are defined by the nature of the digital real-time simulator, the power amplifier, and the power interface (PI). Fundamental characteristics, such as the input/output systems, PI, interface algorithm, and system stability considerations, are discussed for PHIL setups, in order to illustrate both flexibility and complexity of this compound simulation method. The objective of this work is to elaborate an understandable overview of PHIL simulation for electrical power systems and to constitute a contemporary state-of-the-art status of this research area.