Design Issues for a Real-Time PMSM Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop: Analysis at Fundamental Frequency

This paper deals with the design of an isotropic Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (PMSM) power emulator. Power emulators allow the emulation of physical systems to test a Device Under Test (DUT) at its rated power. During PMSM emulation, different electrical and mechanical characteristics must be replicated, such as the back-EMF, the resistive and inductive behavior, the inertia, and the friction coefficient. A power emulator is usually made of a switching converter and a coupling network. A coupling network is the combination of resistors, inductors and capacitors that allows the coupling of the DUT with the emulator switching power converter. In this paper, the analytical relation between the coupling network, the emulator DC bus voltage and the emulator operating range is derived. From the previous analysis a design procedure is obtained. The latter considers the constraint on the converter DC bus voltage, its effects on the coupling network sizing and on the machine operating range that can be emulated. Simulation results show the capability of the proposed method.