A Design Method of an Embedded Real-Time Simulator for Electric Drives using Low-Cost System-on-Chip Platform

Abstract

This paper presents a modular and easily reusable Zynq System-on-Chip (SoC) based Embedded Real-Time Simulator (ERTS) aimed for rapid prototyping of electric drives. The power hardware components of the drive including the voltage source converters (VSC) is programmed in the field programmable gate array (FPGA) fabric of the SoC to achieve real-time emulation. The control algorithms of the electric motor drive are programmed in the on-chip processor which can be used to drive either the physical- or emulated- hardware. The ERTS is scaled in the per-unit system to enhance reusability irrespective of the hardware ratings. The architectures and schematics of different partitions of the ERTS are illustrated. The simulator is demonstrated using a position–sensorless, interior permanent magnet synchronous machine (IPMSM) drive and compared against offline simulation for performance.