Traction Inverter Performance Testing using Mathematical and Real-time Controller-in-the-Loop Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor Emulator

In the development stage of electric vehicle drive, simulation plays a vital role. It's a powerful tool which allows the developer to investigate various control strategies and test hardware systems in harmless work environment. The software simulations platform does have constraints. In that the complex mathematical operations take longer time to solve and eventually increases the overall simulation time and cannot perform the real-time operation. This simulation further needs to be converted to the target processor's language, either assembly or C-language, which will operate in the drive system. However, if a real-time simulation environment could be comprehended, then the real processor used in the system could be incorporated in the simulation. This eventually will eliminate the chance of introducing error during code translation as well as reduce simulation time. Also, the target controller could be tested within the simulation before introducing it the actual system. This paper discuss a concept of controller-in-loop simulation, which can be used to simulate the entire system in real-time. A simple dynamic model of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor is simulated with MATLAB/Simulink as well as on a TMS320F28069 digital signal processor from Texas Instruments Inc. Comparative study of simulation results of both the platforms, demonstrate that although MATLAB/Simulink provides excellent GUI and functionality, it fails to performs real-time simulation which can be accomplished with controller-in-simulation.