Real–Time physical dynamic simulations of electric machine drives with hardware-in-the-loop

This paper presents the real time simulation of electric machine control and drive byusing hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation technology. In our researchimplementations, two simulation loops for the control and drive of the same machineare built. One simulation loop is formed using the actual machine. Another simulationloop is formed using a physics-based phase variable model of the same machine. Thephysics-based phase variable model of the machine is developed from the solutions ofnonlinear transient Finite Element (FE) computations covering a complete ac cycle. Thedeveloped physics-based base model includes both the time and space harmonicsrepresenting the effects of rotor position, slotting, and nonlinear magnetization of thecore, etc. The hardware-in-the-loop simulation of the machine drives provides anexperimental environment for examining the machine model and studying the controlalgorithm. A 2-hp 6-pole PM synchronous machine is used to present the physics-basedphase variable modeling; a 10-pole PM machine is used to demonstrate the hardware-inthe-loop simulation with the actual machine and its physics-based model.