Emulation of a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator in Real-time Using Power Hardware-in-the-loop

In this paper, a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) is emulated using power hardware in-the-loop (PHIL). This emulation scheme provides a method to eliminate risks and costs associated with the testing, prototyping and validation of control structures and power converter topologies that form parts of a motor drive system. The proposed implementation scheme can be used to test drives for machines with various parameters, thereby enabling testing of variety of electrical machine drive controllers where the machine prototype is unavailable. This reduces the cost involved in prototyping the electrical drive system. Specifically, voltage output of the proposed emulator system replicates the voltage that is generated within the real-time model. The terminal voltage generated from the model depends on the load connected at the emulator terminals; the current drawn from the emulator output terminals is sensed and fed-back to the real-time model. The developed emulator replicates the PMSG characteristics in steady state as well as during transients. The performance of the system for non-linear loads such as diode rectifier with capacitor filter is also experimentally verified and presented in this paper for validation.