A Fiber Optic Communication Module to Interface RTDS with Power Amplifier for PHIL Simulations

Power Hardware In Loop (PHIL) methodology enables the flexible and risk-free testing of physical equipment. In these simulations, part of the system is simulated in a Real-Time (RT) simulator, and another part is the actual hardware. A communication module is essential to exchange signals between the RT simulator and the hardware side. Conventionally, copper wires are used as the communication link. However, they suffer from various disadvantages such as no isolation, presence of ground loop, and high EMI, etc. To mitigate these shortcomings, a fiber optics communication module is developed to interface the RTDS and the power amplifier. The design, implementation, fabrication, and verification of the fiber optics communication module is the subject of this paper. The design leads to a full-duplex, galvanically isolated communication module with a large bandwidth and transmission delay of 2.3 $\mu$s. The experimental results verifying the performance of the communication module are also reported.