High Performance Simulators that Increase Simulation Speed and Precision for Power Electronic Controls & Drives at the eDRIVE Motor and Drive Systems 2006 Conference

RT-LAB FPGA-Based Power Electronic Control Prototyping Systems and Electric-Drive Real-Time Simulators are built for Aerospace, Hybrid-Electric Vehicles (HEV) and Industrial Laboratory Users

Opal-RT Technologies Inc. (www.opal-rt.com), the world technology leader in supplying high-performance and distributed real-time simulation on PC-based platforms, will present its latest RT-LAB Power Electronic Control Prototyping System and FPGA-based simulators at the eDRIVE Motor and Drive Systems 2006 Conference in Miami, Florida February 15-16, 2006.

These high performance simulators are capable of prototyping control systems and simulating power electronic system components being developed for both industrial motor drives and the next generation of hybrid vehicles. Various leading automotive OEMs and electronic control system manufacturers in North America, Europe and Asia, are now using Opal-RT’s second generation RT-LAB Simulators, to reduce the development cycle of hybrid electric propulsion systems, complex energy conversion systems and motor drives used in all industries.

The third-generation FPGA-based simulators to be presented at the eDRIVE Conference will reach an unprecedented level of precision required by most demanding applications with PWM carrier frequency up to 100 kHz.

Hybrid power trains and advanced motor drives present unique challenges to the engineer who must design and test highly complex power electronics and control systems. This challenge also extends to manufacturers of real-time simulator and electronic control test equipment. Opal-RT Technologies has therefore pushed simulation technologies to enable design engineers to use real-time simulation as a complementary tool alongside real IGBT converters, motors and other equipment needed to simulate motor loads.

Technical specialists from Opal-RT will bring together leading-edge enabling technologies in simulation hardware, solvers, and detailed component models, all part of the RT-LAB Real-Time Simulator system, in three demonstrations.

• The first demonstration presents the simulation of a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) inverter including accurate simulation of IGBT DC-AC inverter and running on an RT-LAB HIL simulator at a time step of 10 microseconds and firing pulse capture with a resolution of 10 nanos using Xilinx FPGA boards. The simulator provides sufficient accuracy to reproduce typical distortions caused by dead times in switching circuits with a precision better than 500 nanos. Such high-accuracy simulations would normally take hours to reproduce a 10-second real-life ride using conventional simulation techniques. The same 10-second ride is executed in real-time using two Pentium-4 processors running under RT-LAB, with RedHawk™ Linux Real-Time Operating System, and one re-configurable Xilinx FPGA boards. Such simulation speed enables power electronic system manufacturers to connect their controller-under-test or under development in close loop with the simulator before making tests using the real equipment.
• The second demonstration takes power electronics simulation a step further in speed and accuracy. The three-phase PMSM model with sinusoidal flux distribution is implemented in Simulink, which is then automatically compiled and downloaded into a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chip for execution using Xilinx System Generator. With a 250-nanosecond time step, this chip-based simulation allows upcoming hybrid propulsion components such as inverters and DC-DC converters with switching frequency upwards of 100 kHz to be accurately modeled in real-time. This very high accuracy real-time simulator will be used in 2006 by a leading Japanese Automotive OEM to develop the next generation of hybrid vehicles.
• The third demonstration will prove that the most advanced power electronic controllers can be developed and prototyped using Pentium or AMD processors coupled to re- programmable FPGAs using Simulink® block diagram editors.

”The eDRIVE Motor and Drive Systems 2006 Conference is an outstanding forum for presenting our most current high performance simulators to the hybrid vehicle, aerospace and industrial engineering communities,” said Jean Belanger, President of Opal-RT Technologies. "Opal-RT has long been at the forefront of development and deployment of high performance and real time simulation technologies for hybrid vehicle, industrial motors and p ower electronic control systems . As hybrid vehicles gain greater acceptance in the marketplace, Opal-RT will continue to develop technologies and practical solutions that allow design engineers to simulate and reach unprecedented levels of precision in real-time.”