HIL-based certification for converter controllers: Advantages, challenges and outlooks (Invited Paper)

Hardware in the Loop (HIL) testing is widely used in automotive, aerospace, and robotics. However, the use of HIL in power electronics is still in its early stages of expansion due to the growing need for advanced grid support functions of distributed energy resources (DER) and microgrids. This paper presents the advantages, challenges, and outlooks of HIL-based certification for converter controllers. It will cover the types of existing HIL tests, the HIL base certification of controllers, and finally, some examples of industry use cases that successfully employ HIL from product development to pre-certification and certification.