Comparing  with the traditional vehicles, electric vehicles (EV) are more  environmentally friendly.  They reduce the reliance on fossil fuels and  reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The electric drive system is the key  component of the electric vehicle, which is also the biggest difference  between EV and the traditional internal combustion engine-based  vehicles. Considering the high power nature of the electric vehicle  motor drive, engineers would like to replace the actual motor drive  system with a real-time simulator, it will make the testing of high  speed, heavy load and fault conditions easily and safely.

Electric drive system HIL

Motor drive system is a typical power electronic system, it contains power electronics devices which switch at several kilohertz. In order to accurately simulate this kind of fast switching system, the small step size (around 1 microsecond) is required. With its FPGA-based small step size simulation technology, StarSim can simulate the entire electric drive system with 1 microsecond step size. In addition, StarSim can directly support models created in the Software such as SimPowerSystems (SimPowerSystems is the trademark of MathWorks) and quickly download them to FPGA target for the real-time simulation. With the StarSim real-time simulator, engineers can test the motor drive controller performance under different working conditions efficiently and effectively, such as different power levels, normal or extreme.

Results

The  following figure is a real-time simulation system for the end user. The  right side is the real-time simulator of the motor drive system, the  left side is the motor controller board to be tested. The motor drive  system and the resolver model are simulated on the FPGA, and the resolver is used to provide the motor  rotor position information for the controller.  The controllers acquires  motor currents and resolver signals from the simulator and sends the  PWM pulses to the simulator. With these signals, the controller and the  simulator form a closed-loop testing system.

Figure：the real-time simulation system platform scene

Signal waveform （Motor：30KW,3000rpm,180Nm）	Signal waveform （Motor：120KW,1000rpm,2400Nm）