Jacob Sanchez

ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0002-2197-1696

Graduation Semester and Year

2019

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

David A Jr Wetz

Abstract

Hardware in the Loop (HIL) is an established technology that allows for rapid prototyping of controls and verification of how physical devices respond for valid simulated systems. This involves deploying a model of a system onto a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) that can take in external inputs and outputs the state variables present in the system. An example of this could involve the control of the roll, pitch, and yaw of a plane. A simulated plane could output the current state variables of the plane to an external controller which will respond with control signals to the simulated system to stabilize. This is a valuable way of evaluating controllers without the physical system present. Another method of HIL systems is known as Power Hardware in the Loop (PHIL). PHIL is typically used when a simulated system is emulated as a physical device (typically an amplifier) that either sinks or sources current into a physical energy storage device. One aspect of PHIL that has had little exploration is the process of deploying a model of a generation source to be emulated in a physical test bed for hardware validation. This would involve emulating the generation source through a physical power supply that can accurately respond to the PHIL model. This type of operation would be of great interest for microgrids. Microgrids are becoming more popular as a backup system if it were to become isolated from the main grid. If this were to occur, an AC generation source could become the only source of power given the correct conditions. It is known that transient events can cause poor power quality that could cause damage to critical loads within the microgrid. Traditional generation sources consist of gas turbine sets coupled to a synchronous machine to supply the AC voltage needed to power devices present in the isolated microgrid. With possible repetitive transient events lowering the power quality of the generation source, a valid model of the generation source could be deployed as a PHIL model for hardware validation without the physical hardware being present. The repetitive transient events that will be studied are 1 to 30 seconds which are considered “short” transient events [6]. The models presented here were built using the SimPowerSystem toolbox within MATLAB/Simulink. The real time FPGA simulator for deploying the generation source model will be OPAL-RT which is capable of simulating system with an update time of 5µs. This allows the simulation to be updated in 5µs increments allowing the dynamics of the generation source to be taken into account and control the external power supply to emulate the modeled generation source with the real time updated stator voltages within the PHIL model.

Keywords

Hardware-in-the-loop, Power hardware-in-the-loop, MATLAB, Simulink, OPAL-RT, FPGA, Motor-generator, Hybrid energy storage module, Power quality, Frequency, Voltage droop, Fuel generator, Synchronous machine, Induction machine

Disciplines

Electrical and Computer Engineering | Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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