A low-cost real-time hardware-in-the-loop testing approach of power electronics controls

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing is increasingly recognized as an effective approach in the design of power electronics controls. A high-performance real-time simulation environment is necessary to obtain high-fidelity results in HIL simulations. This paper presents the detailed implementation of a very-low-cost multisolver hard real-time simulation environment, namely the real-time extension of the virtual test bed (VTB-RT). VTB-RT is implemented completely from open-source software and off-the-shelf hardware. Using VTB-RT, this paper proposes an efficient real-time HIL testing approach for control designs in power electronics applications. VTB-RT enables the natural coupling between the simulation environment and the hardware under test and, thus, makes virtual power exchange in HIL simulation possible. For validation purposes, the proposed real-time HIL testing approach is applied in-two well-known power electronics application examples, namely a boost converter and an H-bridge inverter with their respective control systems, representing a very-low-cost and a relatively advanced hardware setup, respectively. The consistency of the experimental results with the theoretical results proves the applicability of VTB-RT and the proposed testing approach. Finally, the most recent research progresses in VTB-RT are summarized.