Low Power Real Time Simulation of Electric Motor Controller Unit Evaluation

It has always been great challenge for the Aerospace Industries to validate the actual Motor Control Unit (MCU) functionalities while integrating with the real plant (Motor). This integration demands more time and cost because of complex integration requirement and more expensive to install at every testing stage. The control algorithm developer requires the simplified verification target to validate the control algorithm. This in-turn makes the necessity to adopt Low Power Real Time Simulation (LPRTS) System. This paper describes the design and timing challenges of converting simulation model of plant into Real Time Simulation model for precise validation at a high execution rate of up to max-50KHz (20μsec). The higher execution rate requires faster I/O (Input/output) handling, which is managed by the FPGA based configurable I/O device. This paper describes LPRTS with experimental example of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (PMSM) using OPAL-RT.