Real-Time Controller Design Test Bench for High-Voltage Direct Current Modular Multilevel Converters

Modular multilevel converters (MMCs), with their inherent features and advantages over other conventional converters, have gained popularity and remain an ongoing topic of research. Many scholars have solved issues related to the operation, control, protection, and reliability of MMCs using simulation software and small hardware prototypes. We propose a novel approach for an MMC controller design with real-time systems. By utilizing a key benefit of LabVIEW Multisim co-simulation, an MMC control algorithm that can be deployed on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) was developed in LabVIEW. The complete circuit was designed in Multisim, and a co-simulation was performed to drive an MMC model. The benefit of this topology is that control algorithms can be designed in a LabVIEW FPGA and tested with the Multisim co-simulation circuit to obtain simulation results. Once the controller works and provides satisfactory results, the same algorithm can be deployed in any NI (National Instruments) FPGA-based controller, like a compact remote input/output (RIO), to control real-time MMCs designed in an NI PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI) system. This method saves time and provides flexibility for effectively designing control algorithms and implementing them in an FPGA for real-time model implementation.

Real-Time Hardware in the Loop Simulation Methodology for Power Converters Using LabVIEW FPGA

Nowadays, the use of the hardware in the loop (HIL) simulation has gained popularity among researchers all over the world. One of its main applications is the simulation of power electronics converters. However, the equipment designed for this purpose is difficult to acquire for some universities or research centers, so ad-hoc solutions for the implementation of HIL simulation in low-cost hardware for power electronics converters is a novel research topic. However, the information regarding implementation is written at a high technical level and in a specific language that is not easy for non-expert users to understand. In this paper, a systematic methodology using LabVIEW software (LabVIEW 2018) for HIL simulation is shown. A fast and easy implementation of power converter topologies is obtained by means of the differential equations that define each state of the power converter. Five simple steps are considered: designing the converter, modeling the converter, solving the model using a numerical method, programming an off-line simulation of the model using fixed-point representation, and implementing the solution of the model in a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). This methodology is intended for people with no experience in the use of languages as Very High-Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL) for Real-Time Simulation (RTS) and HIL simulation. In order to prove the methodology’s effectiveness and easiness, two converters were simulated—a buck converter and a three-phase Voltage Source Inverter (VSI)—and compared with the simulation of commercial software (PSIM® v9.0) and a real power converter.

Power Electronics Education A Contemporary Teaching Appproach

Currently, there is a growing demand for methodologies that best qualify engineering students at universities. These methodologies require a substantial change in Engineering Teaching programs improving or even changing the traditional ways of imparting knowledge to students. In Power Electronics (PE) study the factors that make learning difficult for Electrical Engineering students, in order for them to achieve full understanding of the subjects addressed in a first discipline in this area, are the academic maturity required coupled with their multidisciplinary nature. The problem is aggravated in practical activities, which demand the availability of a laboratory infrastructure with specific characteristics not always available. An alternative for the study of PE, with a more contemporary focus, is to introduce, through a new Instructional Design (ID) Project, not only the incorporation of more Hands-On activities that approach truly meaningful (authentic) contents. But also, new methodologies and technologies to support educational objectives that make full use of Digital Information and Communication Technologies (DICTs).This work proposes to develop and carry out a methodological design of a blended teaching for a power-electronics-based practical training program (PEBPTP) for students of the Electrical Engineering Course of the Federal University of Maranhão in Brazil. The proposed program is mainly based on the use of a digital controller (unified) based on FPGA, developed and realized specifically for control and power inverters study. From controller´s VHDL Code already realized, a Reuse Logic Block is generated (Intellectual Property Core (IP Core)), for use within the LabVIEW FPGA Hardware Description Environment. A Graphical Interface (GUI), more intuitive, and developed from the LabVIEW environment, will support the realization of the PEBPTP, for parameterizing the Controller, and show relevant figures of merit of the performance of the converter being study. The active methodologies, converging with the diverse possibilities of resources of the DICTs, implanted in the classroom, with the adequate contextualization of the specific resources of each area, contribute increasingly to the student being protagonist of their own knowledge construction. Finally is proposed, and in full adherence to a novel trend, that both the PEBPTP and the unified controller previously developed in FPGA are embedded in what is being named Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC). This embedded structure will allow access to the laboratory hands-on program via a web service that uses a fully programmable logic device (PLD) that incorporates an integrated structure known as System-on-a-Chip (SoC). The above proposals and experiences involve the mastery not only of curricular and technological knowledge, inherent to the training of an engineer, but of mainly, the pedagogical technological knowledge and correct use of DICTs. At this point, in particular, is founded our contribution within the context of Engineering Teaching, to advance in the improvement or perhaps in the modification of the "classroom" of engineering courses, which today go beyond the physical space of the university.