An FPGA-Based Hardware-In-The-Loop Implementation of Power Electronics Circuits Using a Generic Real-time Simulator

This paper presents a power system real-time simulator and its hardware-in-the-loop implementation with a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) communication. The simulator solver is based on the Modified Augmented Nodal Analysis (MANA), which allows solving different circuit topologies, including circuits with ideal switches. Moreover, for real-time applications like hardware-in-the-loop, these equations must be calculated in a tiny execution time, essentially smaller than the simulation time-step. Because of this constraint, the simulator is often implemented in a dedicated platform. This work employed a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device, which due to its intrinsic parallel nature, allows the time-step to be reduced to achieve the real-time constraint necessary for the real-time simulation of power converters, once this type of system requires very small time-steps. For validation purposes, it is assembled a hardware-in-the-loop implementation of a DC/DC boost converter and a three-phase inverter, composing a system with diverse applications in photovoltaic panels and renewable energies. The implemented simulator works as intended and can simulate a power electronic converter with a simulation time-step of some hundreds of nanoseconds.

I. Introduction

The increasing demand for energy worldwide is challenging for electrical engineering because it requires new technology solutions while assuring system efficiency, stability, and re-liability. Power electronics devices are fundamental in this context once they have a wide range of applications, such as renewable sources systems, uninterruptible power supplies, microgrid interfaces and High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) systems.